


I Could Cry Power

by bellabitch_lestrange



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark fic, F/M, Voldemort won, don't come for me, post-war AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:08:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23332867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellabitch_lestrange/pseuds/bellabitch_lestrange
Summary: A lone soldier left to fight her war, Hermione discovers the meaning of survival.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 24





	1. Day 31

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I'm? starting? a story? Idk why tbh. This fic was inpired entirely by Hozier's new EP which i lOVE, hence the title. I'm mad into Greyback and I wanted to write something a little different to the normal Hermione/Greyback stuff about so I don't know how well (if at all) this will be recieved. Please be nice.

Day 31. Despite the world ending only thirty-one days ago, the water droplet on her cell bar remained undisturbed. Inching slowly from the ceiling, it overcame rust and imperfections in the iron, it retained its shape – small and round until it caught on some painted casing of the metal and succinctly dropped to the floor. It didn't make a sound or leave any visible puddle. Hermione had been watching it for 34 minutes. When there was finally nothing left to watch, her eyelashes fluttered closed, refreshing her tired eyes. They stung in the warmth of her own eyelids. It had been a while since she slept.

It had been a while since she had done anything healthy. 31 days ago everything changed. She and her friends and her family had all fought for their lives and they had all lost. For the past month Hermione had been kept in this mildew-y cell beneath Malfoy manor. She knew it was Malfoy manor; she could feel the weight of the house above her as if the bigotry and the evil were sitting upon her very shoulders.

In this one month she had eaten 7 meals with no real regularity. A bowl of scraps to keep her alive and a goblet of water passed through the bars. She had peed and relieved herself in the corner furthest from the cell bars in some attempt at privacy. She had tried to hold it and the first time had been humiliating and demoralising. Now she wished she had done it closer to the bars, if only to piss off her guards with the stench. It would have at least given her the furthest corner for herself to sleep in, at the back in peace.

The heavy door at the head of dungeons swung open and shut, heavy footfalls descending the steps into her crappy little home. "Munchblood!" A deep, charming man's voice rung out through the dungeon cellar. If the man was close enough to see her she might have rolled her eyes, but in the honesty of her lonely cell, they brightened with the anticipation of some company.

"Right." He said as he found her cell and parked himself on a small wooden chair in front of her bars. He opened a copy of the Daily Prophet in front of her and lowered it to his lap. He looked up at her and winked. "How is the cell going?"

She blinked once. "Great actually. Could do with getting the heating fixed," she glanced up at a drafty hole in the wall, where two bricks didn't quite meet, "but perhaps that's a job for another day." She looked back over to the man who was now engrossed in whatever tabloid story had made today's main news.

"Uh huh, uh huh. And how does that make you feel?" He said, feigning deep interest without looking up.

She almost laughed then. "I didn't realise wizards had therapists."

"Mind healers, darling." He drawled. Thorfinn Rowle did have a very sort of drawl-y voice, she supposed. He was a larger man, not enormous but beefy and muscular, most likely from sport. He had blondish soft hair pulled up into a bun and quite a handsome face. He was posh and pure and not an idiot. Most notably, he was frequently assigned guard of her cell. Others took over from him sometimes but she had spent most of her time beneath the manor in his company. She had known Rowle as a Slytherin quidditch player in seventh year when she was in her first. She never interacted with him then but now they were well acquainted with one another. She used him for human company and he used her as an excuse to get out of doing anything else for the Dark Lord.

"Seven across, golden treasure of Gringotts. Well that's ridiculous! Nobody knows what Gringotts holds, that's the whole point!" His brow was knitted in confusion at his newspaper and he looked up at her for assurance.

She sighed. "Galleons."

He shut his mouth and narrowed his eyes in annoyance at her. He scribbled on his crossword without a word. Perhaps he was an idiot, she thought. "Is there any big news on the outside?" She asked, not really caring either way.

"Wand prices have soared. But then half the forbidden forest was bombed so not really sure what people are expecting Ollivander to make them out of." He mused, flicking through various pages of the Prophet whilst keeping a thumb out so as not to lose his crossword. "Oh and there are job postings up for snatchers." His nose wrinkled in disgust, Hermione wasn't sure if it was snatchers that appalled him or the idea of having a job.

"Does that mean one of the current ones died?" She asked, marginally hopeful.

He nodded, inking in another answer for his crossword. "Most likely."

This was the way Hermione had spent the month since the end of the war. She watched Harry skewered on his own sword by Voldemort, Ron sold to the Macnair as a slave – he was killed a week later after Macnair had gone too far with the torture – and she was all that was left of the golden trio. Not much of the light did survive the war and she assumed that anyone else was killed during the death eaters week long 'purge'. Not that Hermione could say this was surviving. She was aware her eyes were sunken, her cheeks hollowed and her skin deathly pale and ashy from lack of sunlight. Her hips and breasts had disappeared too and now she was skin and bone. She was sure her limbs would have fallen off if it weren't for wakeful nights that kept her pacing the confines of the cell, wondering which of her organs would be the first to shut done from lack of nutrition.

"12 down, Australian semi-aquatic carnivore." Rowle's voice cut through her depressing reverie. She looked up to him peering at her, hopeful she might have the answer.

She was ever-glad for the distraction. "Umm, what letters have you got?"

"Six letters, fourth is a 'y'" He tapped the feather of his quill against his chin in thought.

She thought for a moment. "Bunyip? That's a thing, I think?"

Rowle's expression cleared and he happily wrote in the remaining five letters. "You're a star, Munchy!"

She smiled half-heartedly. She couldn't fool herself into thinking Rowle was her friend. In fact she'd spent more than enough time on the other end of his wand to ensure that. He thought her dirty for her muggle lineage and she thought him a murderous bigot for his murderous, bigoted criminal record. She hated him, of course, but it was nice to have some sensible conversation. She couldn't help that.

The heavy iron door to the dungeons swung open once again and both heads turned to the intruder of their lovely morning together. These footsteps were lighter than Rowle's and more hurried as they descended the stairs. A thinner, lithe man came into view as he approached. Hermione almost didn't recognise Draco Malfoy, he seemed from another world, another time long ago when she was just a child. But there he was, dressed in pristine black and silver robes, his white hair smoothed back.

He looked to her once then swallowed before turning to address Thorfinn, who was sitting casually in his chair. "He wants her now."

What did that mean? Why did he want Hermione? Wasn't she going to rot out the rest of her days here as some sort of eternal hellish punishment for being born? She looked to Rowle with concern and saw his knitted brow.

"He wants her? What does he want with her after weeks of nothing?" He asked, folding his newspaper away.

"How the fuck am I supposed to know?!" Draco snapped. Both Hermione and Thorfinn drew back at his outburst. Even Draco seemed to straighten himself up in shock.

Thorfinn held out his finger at Draco, pointing it in his face. "Now." He wagged his finger. "That is no way to talk to your elders!" He pouted at Draco. "Boop", he said, poking Draco in the nose.

Draco slapped his hand away. "He's ready for her now. So bring her up. Quickly." He turned and headed for the door without another look toward Hermione, leaving them with the heavy grinding of the iron door closing behind him.

Hermione looked back to Thorfinn, "what does that mean?"

"Fuck should I know?" he grumbled, fishing through his robe pockets. He pulled out some ancient looking keys and shackles.

Hermione's gaze dropped to the floor. This was it, a month of nothing and then a death she can do nothing to escape. No last fight. She wasn't sure why she was scared, she had spent the past month barely existing, surely this would be a relief. She wasn't relieved at all, some sort of primal instinct within her was still compelling her to keep her heart beating, to be very afraid of death.

She shook as Rowle opened up the cell door and stepped within her cage. His nose wrinkled in disgust at the smell of her, never mind her dirty blood. Having not washed in a month, she smelt distinctly of something stale and dying. He took her wrists and pulled them together behind her back, locking the shackles around them with a whispered spell.

He pushed her forward and so she walked. Out of the cell, down the corridor, up the steps.

Once out of the dungeon, it took only a few minute of walking through the manor to reach the large dining room. Hermione wished she had made note of the way but the sudden onslaught of light after weeks of such darkness had left her blinded for the last few minutes. She looked up into the room blearily through watering eyes and saw the dining room of Malfoy manor before her.

There was no dining table here as she had expected; the room wasn't at all the way Harry had described it in his dreams. The room was long, armchairs and small tables lining the edges of it and in front of them, death eaters. She recognised some of them from build alone but they all had masks on. She looked up to Rowle behind her and found his face was masked now just like the rest of them. She swallowed thickly, suddenly feeling much colder and much more alone in his grip.

At the other end of the room sat Voldemort in his throne. She looked to his left and saw the dishevelled Lucius Malfoy. His misery gave her some comfort, the thought that his life, too, had been invaded and forever changed by Voldemort gave her some sick satisfaction. Hermione thought at this point, she'd take whatever satisfaction she could get.

Rowle shoved her forward into the centre of the room and whispered, "good luck, Munch." He walked away to join the other death eaters but she didn't watch him. She stared straight at the smiling Voldemort ahead. He looked like instability incarnate. She was terrified for her life.

"Brightest Witch of Her Age," he paused. The air hung thick around her mouth, drugging her on her own fear. She licked her lips and prayed she looked more confident than she felt. "Kneel." He breathed.

She held her chin out in defiance at him and even dared to narrow her eyes but she did not kneel. Murmurs broke out in the crowd around the room. Perhaps a hundred death eaters surrounded her and they seemed to all be flicking between Hermione and Voldemort, anticipating the next move.

Voldemort's smile widened. "Let's get right to it, shall we? I gave you a chance, out of kindness. That was your only one. Lestranges," two figures stepped forward from the right of his throne. "Be good parents and teach this girl how to respect her superiors."

Bellatrix, identifiable by her large bust and mountainous black curls stepped forward, removing her mask. The man next to her, tall with a long ginger braid stepped forward with her and too removed his mask, revealing the dark tattoos framing his eyes. Hermione's eyes widened and her heart started beating rapidly as Rodolphus Lestrange pulled a long enchanted dagger from his robes, one Hermione had seen before. He handed it to Bellatrix and approached Hermione, pulling her hair to hold her flush against his chest.

Bellatrix was positively giddy with bloodlust and Hermione's lip trembled but she didn't dare beg for mercy. Rodolphus' leather-clad hand held Hermione's chin up, exposing her throat.

"Mmmm the good one, the special girl. She is special, Roddy! Been waiting." Bellatrix raised her arm, the knife clutched in her talons. Hermione didn't notice that Bellatrix wasn't really making much sense. She was sure she was going to die. That mad bitch was going to run the knife straight through her throat.

A dry sob forced its way out of Hermione's throat and she broke "please. Dear God, please." She whispered to herself, to anyone willing to listen.

Bellatrix flicked her wrist slightly and Hermione felt a sharp sting snake across her neck. Hermione opened her eyes. She wasn't dead! She breathed through the pain, crying real, relieved tears at the shallow depth of the cut.

Bellatrix growled and marched forward, whipping Hermione around to face Rodolphus and tore her sleeve open. She could feel stares burning upon the scar reading 'mudblood' across her wrist, left from the last time she had met this dagger. A second passed and then white hot pain rippled into her skin as Bellatrix reopened the scar, re-carving the slur into her skin. The blood was warm, angry as it painted red down her hand. Bellatrix was cackling manically but she could hear nothing through her crying and, looking up through the tears, she locked eyes with Draco once more. Unlike before he couldn't take his eyes away.

"Enough!" The high pitched voice sounded ominously through the hall and the pain started to subside finally. "Kneel." Voldemort was angry now and Hermione couldn't even register the danger she was in through the pain in her arm and neck. "Make the mudblood kneel."

Rodolphus spun her back to face the throne and pushed downwards on her shoulders until her legs buckled and she knelt.

"Impolite indeed. I don't think we can let insolence slide anymore." Voldemort stood and, as he did, all other masked persons knelt down on one knee, looking to the floor. Voldemort seemed to not take any notice of this and continued walking towards Hermione on the floor. "This is my day and the time of misbehaviour is over. You're a mudblood in a pure world. You are filth and I can't let scum have the easy way out."

He paused, caressing her cheek, humming gently at the warmth still flowing behind her skin. She recoiled in disgust and he seemed to remember himself. "This is not the world you're used to." He snarled, "There are consequences for your actions and a place for everyone on this earth. Yours is at the bottom, far beneath real wizards. You'd do well to remember that."

Hermione looked up at him, past his disfigured, inhuman face. "It's all well and good trying to scare me, but I'm not afraid." She told him. "You have taken everything from me. I have nothing left to lose so don't threaten me with death because it won't work; I'm not scared." She spoke lowly with hatred filling her voice.

He snarled and slapped her cleanly across the face. "You stupid girl!" He grabbed her by the chin to force eye contact. "Death is a mercy wasted on you. If you bow down, accept your place in our world then you might survive the changes coming." He threw her to the floor and stood straight to address his followers. "Mudbloods needn't be destroyed. Valuable magic shouldn't go to waste. It should be controlled, and yielded for the gain of our species. Like the strength of an ox harnessed to plough fields for the future, we will harness the magic stolen from us. We will take back our rightful place in this world. Indeed, before we let this Mudblood escape this life, it should atone for its sins against our kind. To make an example of it, to show what we intend in our new age." There were nods about the room and Hermione started to understand the weight of the situation.

"So who," Voldemort looked around at the Death Eaters lining the walls of the dining room. "Who will step up to the very noble plate of training the cattle, of paving the way forward in our coexistence with these beasts?"

Shouts broke out around the room, men everywhere removing their masks and calling out for the chance to own her, the prize of the war. Hermione's head whipped back and forth at the nightmare unravelling around her. Voldemort, however, seemed to enjoy the chaos and smiled viciously at the violence intended by everyone wishing to own the Mudblood.

Fights started to break out between one man with black hair and Alecto Carrow who both wished to own her. Bellatrix was even pleading with Rodolphus as if she were asking him for a puppy. There was nowhere Hermione could turn for mercy. After everything she was somehow alive in a room full of people who all seemed to wish some degree of pain on her.

Out of the fray stepped a figure. He did not have robes or a mask, and he made no shouts, just a beeline straight for Hermione and Voldemort in the centre of the room. Hermione saw him and swallowed thickly. "Please God, anyone else." She whispered.

Fenrir Greyback was taller than she remembered and broader too. He stood a head above even Rowle and his stature was not toned muscle so much as rippling bulk and strength. Dirty, unwashed hair, half tied back to keep it out of his face matched his greying beard, long and plaited and his face was painted with tan and grime. A scar crossed through his eyebrow but his eye seemed able and unscarred and she felt bile rising in her throat at the look of them staring straight at her. A smile formed on his face, revealing blood-stained and yellowing fangs that seemed much too animal to be human. He looked as if too many shifts under the moon had permanently merged his human and lupine features into some sick, hellish monster that now stood before her.

"I'll take her." His voice was low and his words growled and whilst he physically looked down at Voldemort, he was clearly waiting for permission.

Voldemort chuckled. "Oh, will you?"

"Well," he reasoned, the crowd around him starting to simmer and quieten. "Who better to train a bitch and make a useful slave out of her than myself. I'd be happy to take her off your hands, my Lord." He made a face at his last words but smiled through it nonetheless.

Voldemort seemed to consider Greyback for a moment. "And why would I offer my prize to the dog?" He smiled at the obvious baiting, well aware that he was testing Greyback, waiting for him to prove his disloyalty. "I've plenty of loyal wizards here that are surely more worthy?"

Hermione looked between Greyback and Voldemort from her place on the floor between them. She watched Greyback bite back the violence in the back of his throat and hold his tongue. "Well, how much lower can our resident Mudblood be? Thrown to the… dogs." He ground out.

Voldemort didn't take notice of the vicious attack Greyback seemed to be keeping behind his teeth. Instead he looked down at Hermione. She felt a serious burning hatred swell within her and she stared back through the tears lumping her lashes together, her hatred simmering in the space between them.

He stepped aside, out from in between Greyback and Hermione and gestured toward her. "You're welcome to her. But mark my words Dog, I want her kept alive. If she dies, it will be your bitch on my table, fed to my men."

Greyback did snarl then but didn't move. His voice took on a distinctly inhuman growl as he spoke "I'm gonna enjoy you, darling." He pulled her up to her feet and pulled her close to him, sniffing and licking along her neck.

Fresh tears rolled hot down Hermione's cheek and she swore to herself she'd kill everyone in this room.


	2. Whip

A whip _crack_ of apparition and Hermione's feet hit hard rocky earth, jolting her tightly against Greyback's frame. The violent twisting of magic, especially to Hermione's magic deprived body, disturbed something within her and she promptly vomited the little food she did have inside her stomach all down her front and over Greyback's hands. She spat the taste from her mouth.

Greyback shook the vomit from his fingers. "No bother, darling." He growled, seemingly unphased by the extremely unpleasant smell.

Hermione heard a wolf whistle from some feet away and she looked up toward the sound, suddenly realising she was in some forest camp, 6 or 7 small tents surrounding a fire where 13 men sat on camp chairs, cushions or pieces of log. All eyes were on her and Greyback. One man, roughly middle-aged with dark black hair, grunted and stood. "Where did you pick this up, Alpha?"

He walked over toward where they stood and Hermione shook.

"Brought you all a snack-"

"NO!" Hermione screamed, shaking with rage and fear in Greyback's grasp.

Greyback shook with a silent laughter, "but sweetheart. We never got properly acquainted last time, did we?" He took a deep whiff of her neck. "I was right. You still smell so delicious." He growled into her ear.

She struggled out of his grasp. "Don't touch me, you foul monster! Don't touch me!" She screamed and insulted them, trying to hit or strike out at them wherever she could but Greyback quickly held her elbows together behind her and lifted her off the ground, effectively immobilising her. Still Hermione screamed, trying to kick him in the knee or hopefully in the balls. She tried to be loud, to be difficult to attack. She wanted to make a scene, maybe then they'd be discouraged from actually eating her.

Greyback dodged one fairly hefty blow aimed at his crotch and whistled lowly. "Won't be taking those shackles off for a while." He brought her closer then and quickly sunk all five fingernails of his right hand into her stomach, winding her. "There. Quieten the fuck down." He growled in frustration.

The other men started to move toward them, fairly interested in Greyback's new prize. He threw her against a tree and Hermione cried out at the fresh wounds grating against the bark through her t-shirt. Fresh tears rolled over her lashes, following their well-worn path down her cheeks. Greyback came up behind her once again and leant his weight into her, pressing her cheek, chest and stomach against the trunk and letting her feel the obvious bulge in his trousers.

He growled a sick sort of laughter into her ear and licked her.

"She's the golden girl isn't she? The Dark Lord gave her to you?" The black-haired man asked.

She felt Greyback grunt and nod and looked up at the other men around her for some sort of mercy. She was sorry to see some of them were already palming themselves through their clothes and were looking far too beastly to care about her.

The other man came closer, leaning in to sniff her neck. She whimpered in pure fear and desperately wished by some miracle they'd just decide to leave her alone but she knew that was wishful thinking to say the least. She sobbed into the tree as the black-haired man beside her stroked a finger down her cheek, then pulled her top down to bare her breasts, as small as they were now.

He looked at Greyback. "There's barely anything to her, Alpha."

Greyback just grunted. "Knife." He panted out. His breathing was becoming more ragged behind her and she looked briefly over her shoulder to see his fangs were elongated and his eyes glowing a frightful amber. Hermione panicked, was he turning? Was it even the full moon tonight?

Amidst her panicking the black-haired man had taken a knife out of Greyback's jacket and awoke Hermione from her frozen anxiety by ripping straight through her t shirt with it. The men surrounding her were all getting more and more antsy now, following quickly behind Fenrir in how beastly they became. She felt Greyback's claws slice into her thighs as he tried to shred her trousers down her legs. Some of the other men started to grope her breasts and stomach, trying to lay hands on any inch of skin they could. She screamed and cursed at them but they ignored her.

Greyback had gotten her trousers down to just below her bum and Hermione started kicking out at him erratically, catching him in the shin. He roared in fury behind her and threw her to the ground. She rolled over in time to see him pounce onto her. She screamed as his hand came up to hold her throat to the ground, strangling her noise out of the air. He rummaged around in his trousers for a moment, trying to shove them out of his way despite his elongated claws catching in clothing and making it difficult.

Hermione felt her eyes water and his cock align with her entrance, thick and hard and warm. She closed her eyes and stilled.

His panting stopped suddenly and she felt him stiffen above her. She opened her eyes and saw Greyback looking up at something ahead of him, the other men too were looking in the same direction. Hermione hadn't heard the careful _ahem_ in her dizzied, half-choked state but the others had.

Greyback slowly released his grip of her throat and she took in a huge breath, coughing thoroughly. She was coming to the realisation that if Greyback hadn't have stopped, she might have died in moments.

He got up off of her slowly, his movements calculated and tender, the wolf not wishing to startle his prey. Hermione, shaking, followed his eye line to see what had narrowly saved her.

For a split second, Hermione thought she was seeing Bellatrix Lestrange at the door of the far tent, but as her blurred vision came into focus, she realised that this woman was much shorter. Like Bellatrix, she had a mass of black curls atop her head however hers were slightly sun-bleached brown and somewhat matted in places. Like Bellatrix, this woman was of east Asian descent with a sharp glare and full lips. Her skin was far darker than Bellatrix's and her frame more muscular. Perhaps the most notable difference was the protruding pregnant belly that was not quite hidden by her knit jumper. Bellatrix certainly didn't have _that_. The resemblance was uncanny, this woman just appeared to be what Mrs. Lestrange might have looked like had she been a healthy, sun-kissed young woman.

Greyback moved over her once again, his glowing eyes still trained on this unknown woman. She disappeared back inside the far tent before he stepped over Hermione, looking once to the man with the black hair. He huffed like a bull through flared nostrils and stalked after the woman with long strides.

The pack watched Greyback, too, disappear into the far tent. Hermione looked around the men, some of them seemed to be more cognisant and decidedly more human than moments before.

The man with the black hair looked back to her and walked over to her. He pulled her up unceremoniously and withdrew his wand. "Alohamora" he muttered, and she felt the shackles open and fall off her wrists.

Before she could utter a thank you, he started to pinch and pull on her breasts again. The fight renewed within her and she screwed up her face, screaming at him. "Get off, you sick bastard! Get off!"

He didn't seem to enjoy her pain and struggle quite as much as Fenrir did, in fact he seemed rather annoyed by it. Hermione kept it up, hoping to disinterest him and the others. With her hands now free she lashed out behind at him, trying to rake her short nails into his face, kicking and screaming at him to leave her alone.

He growled in frustration. "Help me hold her down. I'll mount her." His voice was devoid of both empathy and cruelty and Hermione knotted her hands into fists. She punched the first guy in arms reach in the head, clawing at a second's neck. By the time the third man approached her, they had learnt to grab her hands and arms first. Two men held her arms still and helped the black-haired man holding her to drag her closer to the fire. She kicked and screamed, scratches and bruises starting to mottle her skin. She was determined to make this as difficult as possible for them. Perhaps after the fact, she'd think her resilience were for Harry and Ron or for her parents, but in reality she was fighting purely for herself, for her right to survive.

The men bent her arms back behind her and held them tightly across her back. Two men made quick work of her shoes and socks and, before long, the black-haired man had her thrown over one of the logs around the fire. He pulled her trousers down the rest of the way. "Get them out of the way," he ordered a younger man. She whimpered loudly, trying to stop them but she felt hands encase her legs and hold her down.

Behind her, the black-haired man unzipped himself and pulled his cock out of his jeans and before she could scream again, she felt him fill her to the hilt.

Despite avid snogging and the upper body molestation from Krum in her fourth year, she had never had the pleasure of sex before. She had never been ready or the time wasn't right with the war going on and now she felt the full force of that inexperience inside her. Her entrance burned with pain and she was sure something was torn. She cried so much, her snot and drool creating an ugly pool on her lip.

The black-haired man let out a satisfied _ahh_ as he buried his cock in her _._ "Warm," He whispered. He then started to move his hips, his weight covering her back. He grunted into her hair and was quickly pistoning his cock in and out of her.

The other men were fascinated, groping and pinching her nipples and helping to keep her in place but at this point she had given up fighting. She couldn't move the beast on top of her any better than she could go back and win the war.

She raked her fingernails through the wet earth beneath her, trying to keep the pain at bay. His cock filled her again and again, dragging dry against her torn flesh and winding her at every thrust. After a few minutes of being used, some of the other men started to get their dick out and jerk themselves off. One younger man had his dick in his hand as he sniffed and licked at her neck. Some just sat on the other side of the fire to watch.

Her tears renewed on her cheeks when she could feel herself starting to get wet, her vagina becoming slick with her own fluids. The relief it brought her from the pain was beautiful and Hermione was so grateful for less friction in her burning sex. The black-haired man felt her fluids too and his thrusts became more erratic, humping her like a dog and grunting fervidly on top of her. Now his cock was bottoming out against her cervix and Hermione grit her teeth to get through the pain of it.

The man buried himself inside her once more and became very tense before she felt a wash of warm fluid flood her insides. He stayed inside her for several minutes as the stream of semen lessened, breathing and panting heavily. He eventually pulled his now soft cock out of her and stood to watch the semen drip. He licked his lips and did up his trousers, sitting down on one of the camp chairs and took a deep swig of the hip flask leaning up against the chair leg. Hermione closed her eyes and didn't move from her place on the log.

* * *

Hermione woke very naturally to the golden light of day casting a warm glow through the shield of the tent wall. Her eyelashes fluttered open and her warm brown eyes took in her surroundings. She stretched her toes and tensed, a sudden pain shooting through her groin and abdomen.

The men had taken turns on her well into the night. The black-haired man had several goes between the others and Hermione's stomach was scratched raw from the friction of the bark beneath her, the puncture wounds Greyback had given her had started to scab once they left her stomach alone. Her cheeks felt dry and tight from where her tears lay crusted onto her skin and she moved a hand up to her face and wiped away the sticky mess in her eyes, blinking until her vision focused. She had a man's large coat wrapped around her and, on top of that, a knit blanket. It was surprisingly soft for what Hermione had known of wool.

She bundled herself into her blankets and stared blankly around the tent. It was a wizarding tent, a large space with an open flap that, when closed, would separate the bedroom from the rest of the open space. There was a small table and chair in one corner and a comfier brown bean bag opposite it. Beside the bean bag were two boxes of different material and sizes and from what Hermione could see, they contained books and scrolls. On the other side of the tent were several more of these mismatched boxes stacked haphazardly on top of each other and beside each other. The occupant kept a lot of _things_ but didn't seem to care much for décor. This tent was a practical residence, clearly.

Hermione herself was lay on top of several cushions and more blankets on the floor and, looking above her, she could see was lay at the foot of a bed. She sat up, resting backwards on her hands and stared around some more. She was exhausted and she didn't know where she was. She half wished she were dead and half wish she could continue sleeping, maybe forever. The commitment of death seemed too much but at least sleep offered her a break.

Tears stung her eyes and her lip wobbled. She was utterly damaged. She let her heart waver for a few moments before she was interrupted by someone entering the tent. The black-haired man caught sight of her awake and stared. "Ah good, you're awake."

She stared in horror at him, her attacker, her rapist. A million emotions threatened to overcome her at once at the sight of him and memories of the night before. "Don't come anywhere near me." Her voice was no more than a whisper. Her body, exhausted and used, couldn't seem to cope with much more.

"Calm down, pet. I've had my fill of you for now," he said, rather matter-of-factly. He squatted down at the many boxes and picked out some vials and something wrapped several times in what looked like grease-proof paper, pocketing bits and moving bits about. This was clearly his tent with all of his belongings. He looked up at her after a moment. "You're hungry, I bet."

"Where am I?" she asked, finding more resolve now. She hated him and she wanted him to know just by the tone of her voice.

He smirked slightly. "Forest of Dean at the moment. But more specifically, you're in my tent so watch your tone."

Hermione was livid and she flared her nostrils. "You have no right-"

"No right?" He stood and got closer to her. "This is my tent. You've been given warmth and healing and fucking shelter in the rain last night. I'm in charge here so pipe the fuck down and behave." He growled at her, standing over her. "You'd think you'd have learned by now. I'd heard you were intelligent but clearly not." He bent down by her and she flinched as his fingers touched her ankle. He held her ankle still and keyed open the shackle that she didn't notice was binding her to the foot of the bed.

He pulled out his wand from his coat pocket and drew circles around her wrists, a light blue tendril of magic wrapping around them and binding them together. She looked up at him with steel anger. He just raised in eyebrow in a silent challenge.

The man was very composed it seemed. He was logical about what he did and practical. He didn't at all seem to have any sort of moral compass getting in the way of what he did, after all he had raped her several times the night before. But there was no outward cruelty or sadism about him like there was with Greyback.

Greyback. She was in Greyback's camp. Where was he? What was he planning for her? She looked over the black-haired man's shoulder as if Greyback would come waltzing through the tent flap any minute now.

The man in front of her followed her line of vision to the tent flap, seeming to cop her fear. "You're alone for now. I have the privilege of not having to bunk with the other idiots. Besides they're all plenty satisfied." He paused after a moment, and stood to his feet. He walked over to the boxes and lifted some off the top, pulling out some eggs and some more paper wrapped parcels from the ones beneath. "You're a virgin. Or you were. You must be feeling some pain."

Hermione narrowed her eyes in hate. She was furious she hadn't been the one to decide when she would lose her virginity. She was furious he could tell she was a virgin. She was absolutely fucking livid that he had the audacity to talk to her about pain. Oh, if she had her wand he'd be fucked.

At her silence, he turned to face her. "Well? Pain?"

"None of your business." She ground out, wanting to take back the control she once had over her body.

He huffed in annoyance, turned and leant back against the box to address her. "I am a trained healer. I have an inventory of things that might be able to help you, with Alpha's permission. So if you ever care to stop being a brat, I'll sort out the ache between your legs and the one behind your eyes." He folded his arms across his chest.

She hadn't even noticed her headache and now she was annoyed he seemed to know more about her body than even she did. She furrowed her brow in frustration and thought. Weren't they all werewolves? Certainly no healer could train without graduating from Hogwarts and Lupin had been the only werewolf to ever attend. She looked at him. "I call bullshit."

He sighed. "I have to help you, its Alpha's orders. If I wanted to poison you, I couldn't."

"Not that. You're not a healer. You're lying."

He smiled genuinely then, seemingly amused. "I'll give you that. I never did graduate but I did complete my training with St. Mungo's and, more importantly, I can help."

A silence hung between them for a few moments.

The man licked his teeth. "How about we talk about this over breakfast, hm?"

Hermione couldn't stop her breath from hitching at the sound of breakfast. God, she was hungry. "No. I don't need your food."

He rolled his eyes. "Now you're just being an idiot. I ran some tests on you this morning. You're severely underweight and malnourished, you are borderline anemic and very susceptible to getting seriously ill in this environment."

She was becoming very frustrated with him but she couldn't get a word in to shut him up.

"You're immune system is pretty devastated, it's a miracle you've survived this far. Come, lets get some food into you before you keel."

"Bu-"

"But nothing! Your body has been through trauma." He snapped at her, reminding her somewhat of McGonagall when she was right and annoyed. "Let me guess, you've stopped bleeding?"

That shut her right up. It was true, thinking back she hadn't had a period since she was on the run with Ron and Harry. Whilst she hadn't noticed – too busy with bigger problems – thinking back it had been about two months since she did.

"Mhmm," he nodded. "Exactly. So shut up and accept the help I give you." He pushed himself off the boxes and headed for the door of the tent. "Clean clothes are in the dresser beside the bed. Join us for breakfast." And with that he was gone.

Finally, alone in the silence of the tent, she felt an emptiness in her heart and her mind. Her eyes watered and she no longer kept back the tears. This was healthy. She was 'traumatised' after all. Crying was her right. After everything that had happened she wanted to fight and cry and scream and break and kill. Gone were the days of mercy, she wanted people dead and she knew who. She wanted her attackers to feel pain.

After a few minutes her tears subsided, almost sooner than she had wanted but she couldn't force any more of them out despite her trying, so she used to soft wool blanket to wipe her eyes and cheeks. She stood, her legs shaking. The ache between them grew with the movement, more so than the ache in her heart and it distracted her from the fickle tears. She reached down and touched her vagina very softly, afraid of the pain. It was wet and she didn't need to look to know there was some blood still drying.

She looked around the tent, moving to the dresser where the clothes sat. She opened the top drawer and found socks and a few pairs of men's underwear. She dug through the drawer and eventually found a soft enough cloth. She looked around again and headed for the boxes, rummaging around in them until she found a full glass bottle. She unstopped it and sniffed it carefully, smelling nothing obviously concerning.

She took a deep breath and decided to chance it, wetting the cloth with it and steeling herself to rub it ever so gently against her torn flesh. It didn't sting like she thought it would, just a dull, bruising ache. When she was clean as she could bother to be, she threw the cloth on the blankets she woke up in and made her way back to the dresser.

She looked at the clothes in front of her, half expecting some sort of Princess Leia Golden Bikini, complete with matching 'sexy chains'. She was pleasantly surprised and somewhat suspicious of the dark green polo shirt and plain grey gym leggings. There were thick boot socks, too large for her and a distinct absence of underwear.

She pulled the clothes on, taking some time to button the three buttons of the polo shirt and sniffing the collar. It smelt clean, faintly feminine and like perfume washed away. The leggings were too loose around her scrawny waist so she wound the waistband down to keep them up. She noticed they were loose around the backs of her knees too but they were comfy and clean and she started to feel less like human waste.

After pulling the thick woolen socks over her ankles and up to her calves, Hermione headed for the door of the tent. She opened the flap subtly, getting a look at what was out there. She saw several men walking about the clearing, some dipping in and out of tents, but most were sat around the fire pit, talking and eating. She opened the tent further and found the black-haired man in the center of the circle dishing out bacon from a tray suspended above the fire.

He looked up to her as she took a step out of his tent and beckoned her over with his hand. She stepped very slowly into the circle of chairs and didn't look at anyone but the black-haired man. He turned, forked several slices of cooked bacon onto a metal plate and handed it to her. "Eggs should be ready soon."

She held the plate, her stomach doing flips at the smell of the bacon snaking up into her nose. She looked around to find some staring at her, feeling the crushing weight of their gazes on her. Most of the men, however, were too busy eating or drinking or cleaning or whatever to even pay attention to her but the few that did watch her made her feel naked. She hated this. It disgusted her and she decided that they would _not_ affect her.

"Clothes fit alright?"

Hermione jumped out of her skin at the voice suddenly appearing behind her. She whipped around and came face to chest with Greyback. He chuckled at her and clutched the back of her neck, steering her towards a camp chair. He pushed her down to sit on the floor and sat himself in the chair. "You'll want to eat. We've got ground to cover today and your skinny little legs aren't going to hold you up for much of it, 'specially if the boys get bored." He laughed quietly to himself. She didn't find it funny.

She picked up a strip of well cooked, fatty bacon in her fingers and took a bite. Her lips sung in ecstasy and she scoffed more of it in her mouth. She ate ravenously, her desperation for a real meal overcoming her and before long she felt Greyback's paw rest on top of her nest of matted hair. He lent in next to her, "you're going to chuck that back up if you eat like that."

She nodded silently, and slowed her bites and savouring the juice meaty flavour. His hand disappeared off her head and she glared up at him. He took a swig of a large metal bottle of water, none the wiser.

"No no, you do the eggs, they're horrific."

Hermione looked up toward the center of the clearing where the black-haired man and the woman she saw yesterday were cooking the breakfast. Hermione had completely forgotten about the woman from last night. She watched her from her place on the dirty forest floor. The woman stood and covered her mouth and nose, not looking at the eggs in the tray in front of her. "Anders, I swear. You need to sort that because I can't."

The black-haired man – Anders – sighed, "It's not that bad, you've fried eggs before. I've watched you do it."

The woman rolled her eyes at Anders' turned back and Hermione inwardly laughed. This woman seemed to feel similarly toward the man to Hermione. She watched the woman bend over above the eggs once more, turn a positively green colour, and then hold her mouth as she ran for the trees. Greyback stood up and caught her as she ran past him, bending her over gently and holding back the web of curls on her head as she vomited on the floor. He held her pregnant belly and let her hair go to rub up her back. She wretched once more and then stood, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Greyback walked her back to the camp chair and sat her down in it. Hermione couldn't believe her eyes. He was being gentle with her, nothing at all like the purely animal look in his eye last night as he shredded Hermione's clothes or chased after this pregnant woman in favour of Hermione. She watched him kick some dirt over the vomit on the floor and hand her his flask of water.

After she took a sip, she smiled flatly. "I'm fine. Blame Anders and his fucking eggs."

Greyback raised a brow and looked over to Anders now plating fried eggs and handing them out.

The woman got up from the chair.

"Where do you think you're going?" He put a hand out and caught her jaw, testing his claw against the softness of her cheek. The changes in the way he handled this woman was giving Hermione whiplash.

"Just to lie down, I promise."

He hesitated a moment before letting her go, turning to watch her walk into the larger tent in the site. He turned back then and looked down at Hermione, "where are your shoes?"

She swallowed a bite of bacon. "Anders didn't give me any. I just had these," she said, wiggling her socked toes. She paused for a moment. "Are they hers?" She gestured down at the clothes she was now wearing.

Greyback looked at her with a dead set stare, summing her up, calculating her intentions. "Do you think they'd fit her?"

Hermione bit off another piece of her bacon. "I think they might have, before she was pregnant."

He growled and ripped the plate out of her hand, threw it on the floor, grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off her the earth. "Watch your tone." He growled, his tone suddenly cautious.

She breathed threw the hand holding her neck. "I didn't say anything wrong! She is pregnant, isn't she?"

He huffed and let her fall back to her bum. She rubbed her neck and glared at him. He hadn't choked her but his grip was certainly rough and it left an irritation on her skin. "You fucking watch yourself, whore." He growled, close to her face. "You wouldn't be the first person I de-limb." He smiled crookedly and disgustingly, reminding her of some horrific love child of the Cheshire cat and the Big Bad Wolf.

She looked away, hating that she was afraid of him but she was.

He stood then, towering over her for a moment and then left, disappearing off into the trees. Hermione didn't much care what for. She stared ruefully at her bacon on the floor, covered in dirt. She started to consider eating it anyway but she was interrupted.

"Let the forest have them, your treat."

She looked back up and saw Anders. She rolled her eyes.

He sat down on the floor next to her and handed her a plate of more bacon and some fried eggs. She took it and glared at him, confused as to why he took the floor over the perfectly comfy camp chair right next to him.

"That's Alpha's seat." He explained, catching her eye. "You wouldn't catch any of this lot in it. And he shouldn't catch you in it either," he warned. "He is sensitive about Aanka. Tread carefully around them."

"Aanka? Is that her name?" She asked.

He nodded. "Aanka Greyback."

"He has a sister?" She blurted out.

"Wife." He corrected around his food.

"He's married?!" At his warning look, she spoked more quietly. "Sorry. Just didn't ever picture Fenrir Greyback as a homemaker."

He chuckled quietly. "Don't mistake him for one. He is a wolf with a bitch, not a homemaker."

She made a purely disgusted face at his language and complete disrespect for Greyback's wife but he didn't seem to notice. "Is she a slave to you all too?" She asked, her tone heated.

"Don't be ridiculous. She's a shewolf. One of us. And believe me, Alpha doesn't share."

The way he talked about women like they were property was obviously something Hermione had heard of but had never fully encountered in her life and she didn't quite know how to respond. She had never actually met someone who regarded women as a thing to possess, at least not as explicitly as this. Perhaps later she would think of something witty but as she stared at him with disgust she didn't want to engage with it. "So I need to be a werewolf to get better treatment then." She muttered, acknowledging the irony of such a sentiment.

"Mmm." He agreed. "But that won't be happening. Alpha can't ensure you'll survive the bite so he can't exactly take the risk."

"Why wouldn't I survive?" She was confused. Remus had never mentioned it being lethal, and she'd certainly never heard of the bite alone killing someone.

"Well," he explained, chewing on some bacon. "The bite sometimes does just completely destroy the system. Wizards tend to do better than muggles but that's not a rule. Women, on the other hand… they rarely make it, witch and muggle girl alike." He finished off the bacon and started licking his lips. "When you're done eating, you'll be cleaning up with James." He nodded at a younger, mixed race man who was still eating and talking with some others.

She furrowed her brow, not understanding so much she thought she knew. She shook her head of his subject change. "Why don't women survive the bite?"

"Well some do, Aanka's certainly still kicking." He gave a look as to say he had seen her kicking plenty. He shrugged. "No one knows really. Just a phenomenon among our kind. Bitches are rare."

He stood, chucking his metal plate onto a pile by the fire pit that was no longer burning.

"Eat up and get cleaning."

Anders walked off in the same direction Greyback had and now she was alone. She hated this. Everything was so decided and unknown to her. She twisted her hands slowly, feeling the weight of the magical shackles around her wrists, binding her to god knows what. She was dead set on escape. She'd flee the country and be done with all of this war. Maybe find her parents. Maybe be okay.

She looked down at the bacon and eggs in her lap, still warm and dripping fat. She'd eat and then she'd think about escape.


	3. Walking

Hermione hadn't realised how much walking was involved in Greyback's "ground to cover". Her magic shackles were doubled up with corporeal metal ones which were attached to Greyback's belt. She scoffed inwardly at them, half thinking that these weren't at all for security, just another show of dominance from Greyback. She had apparated again with the man and once more tossed her food onto the forest floor. Then she had been forced to walk alongside the brute, the chain binding her to him was far shorter than the magical one.

Her legs felt as if they had been caned repeatedly at having to keep to the pace of the werewolves around her. All of them seemed at least somewhat athletic and certainly far more used to this than her. Her stomach was also growling ominously and, despite her month long fast at Malfoy Manor, she was sure she had never felt hungrier.

"I'm telling you, there's something disturbed about the brush here, there were people here." A thirty-something man named Thomas was trying to persuade Anders that the group wouldn't have to wander too much farther to find the rebels they were tracking. So far, Anders wasn't buying it.

"You don't suppose that other animals could disturb the brush?"

A few of the other men at the back chuckled at this, amused at poor Thomas.

Hermione couldn't say she would be downtrodden if they were close by. It might mean a midday rest, one she particularly needed now. The day, only half over, had been long and exhausting and she had learnt a lot. Firstly, she had learnt the purpose of Greyback's wolf pack living out in the middle of nowhere. They were Voldemort's best snatchers and Hermione believed that. She had seen Greyback throw a dagger at a tree and skewer a rabbit she hadn't even noticed was running away; there were certain qualities about these men that made their hunting skills seem far from human standard. Voldemort was clearly having them round up the stragglers of the light, for a large sum no doubt.

Secondly, Hermione had learned that yes, these werewolves _were_ cleaning up. Overhearing the men talk as they walked through woodland and countryside made it clear that Gallions, meat and free reign were all on offer for each snatch. Certain high profile names had high bounties too, but she hadn't managed to hear a single name she recognised, though she hoped at least one of her friends was out there, evading her and these group of beasts.

Yes, she had learnt a lot today about the group she now walked with as well as life outside of Malfoy's dungeons. The world had changed it seemed. Change didn't seem strong enough a sentiment. It had been slaughtered and Voldemort's hellish demon baby world had spawned its place, and the worst part was that it was only due to grow. There were laws that now apparently allowed people to hunt down muggleborns and their allies. She was walking in a nightmare.

She sighed inwardly, privately enjoying the break from the all the moving. Aanka suddenly moved between the two men to sit down in the grass on the other side of them. She put her hands out behind her and watched the argument happily. From this angle, Hermione could see the woman's bulging quadriceps and calves leaning out of the bottom of her shorts. God, Hermione really didn't want to get that used to this.

Greyback was surveying the two men, not really interjecting or even listening. Anders turned to him, "Alpha, do you believe the mudbloods are around here?" The man arched a brow at Greyback, as if trying to prove his point to Thomas.

Greyback rolled his eyes like a parent, "course not."

Thomas seemed to sag in self-pity. "But the brush—"

"Listen," Greyback placed a clawed hand around the back of Thomas' neck. "Whether they were here or not, they'll have heard your fucking hissyfit and pissed off the other side of the forest so do us all a favour and shut the fuck up." He sighed and extricated his wand from his jacket pocket, drawing up a spell over the trees ahead. Hermione recognised the modified _revelio_ charm and, a moment later, recognised the lack of anything to mean they were in fact alone.

Greyback's heavy brow dropped and he sent a glare at Thomas, who remained silent for some time after as they continued their trek through the forest of Thetford.

Hermione remained silent, staring at Greyback and Anders, staring at all of these men. They had caused her so much pain, had defiled her and she had no escape. All day she had felt on edge, hyper aware of their every movements. It was as if their creepy, animal-ness was rubbing off on her. Were werewolf instincts contagious? No, she thought. The disease isn't airborne, she rolled her eyes at herself.

She briefly wondered what Remus would say of her thinking of his affliction as a disease. But there was no other way to put it, these men were diseased. If not physically, then mentally for certain. That was the one thing she just couldn't wrap her head around so easily. They were all so different to Remus. Anders was cold and abrupt, matter of fact and pragmatic and seemed to have a moral compass entirely of his own design. The mixed race man she cleaned dishes with this morning, Tye his name was, was easy to talk to but he joked about her fall to slavery as if she had simply had a bump with the police. She hated his jovial tone, she'd give anything to pretend her ordeal was a speeding ticket but it wasn't and it frustrated her to no end.

Sadism took on a human skin in the form of Fenrir Greyback. She had always known him to be cruel but she had taken it for granted. Several times today he had hit lower, younger members of the group. Several times he had licked his bloody, yellowed teeth at the thought of the prey they were hunting. She hadn't even watched him in action but she knew his body count, even in human form, was higher than anything she could fathom.

The point was, Remus was just not like this. He was not an animal like these men were. He was not warped, he was normal and kind and funny and humble. She felt homesick for her teacher and everywhere she looked there were men less and less like him.

She paced along behind Greyback and Anders in front, effectively surrounded by the rest of the group, for several more hours, pitying herself whilst she watched them all out of the corner of her eye as best as she could.

Greyback slowed in front of her and she felt Anders arm catch her from tumbling right into the Alpha. Greyback sniffed. They all sniffed. He grumbled in frustration. "I can't smell human from tree with that thing around." They all turned to look at Hermione and she suddenly felt her heart speed up. What had she done now? In fact… what _had_ she done at all? So now it was her mere existence that troubled them? It was there fault she was here at all and they were going to blame here! She grit her teeth in anger.

"Perhaps that thing would be better off left here instead whilst you all carry on." She ground out.

The men turned to her with eyebrows raised, Tye looking half disgusted with her cold bravery.

Greyback laughed lowly, turned quickly and back-handed her with the force of a bear. She felt her neck click loudly as her head whipped around and she stumbled backwards, falling onto her rump. Her cheek burned and tears sprung to her eyes at the sharp sting across her face. She reached up and felt the shredded skin grazed over the apple of her cheek. His callused hand had grated her face like cheese. She was horrified.

He walked forward to her, and placed one booted foot over her chest, pushing her into the ground until she had no choice but to lie down beneath him. Greyback's laughter was gone and he stared down at her for several moments.

When she didn't say anything, just watched him with wide eyes from the floor, he moved his foot and carried on leading the group onward.

* * *

Several hours had passed and little had happened. They had walked farther than she had ever walked before in her life and she was ready to collapse when they stopped. The sun was setting and the cool bluish glow around the forest made her feel cold.

The men around her were opening up there rucksacks and enlarging their shrunken tents for the night, chatting and laughing as they went. She suddenly felt a sharp kick to her back.

"Get up human and get to work." Greyback growled at her before raising his own wand to set up the large tent between two trees.

Hermione rubbed her back and hesitantly made her way to Anders. He was rummaging through a rucksack for something. He seemed to have made use of the bottomless bag charm she had so loved during her travels, as he was shoulder deep in a bag that looked no larger than his forearm.

"What are you looking for?" She asked.

He looked up at her, tired and annoyed. "Peace of mind." He huffed. "I have beef joints… somewhere."

She nodded. "Can I help?"

He raised his brow, clearly surprised at her friendly offer.

"Greyback is making me." She explained quickly.

He nodded. "That's Alpha to you." He warned her. As different as he was to Remus, his parent-y tone with her kept making her feel as if she were back in class, shit-talking Snape in front of her old DADA professor.

She scoffed. "I'm not a werewolf. He's not my _Alpha._ "

Out of nowhere, a fist knotted into her unruly, unbrushed curls and yanked her backwards without warning. "You're right." Greyback cooed into her ear, pulling her close against his body. "I'm your slave Master." He let her go with a cruel smile, unclipped the chain from his belt loop and handed it to Anders, then made his way into his tent on the other side of a tree.

Hermione was fuming but before she could scream her anger, Anders interrupted her. "You'll want to watch that temper. It's going to get you into trouble."

She rolled her eyes, pet her irritated scalp and dropped to her knees. She picked up his rucksack and started fishing around for his bloody beef joints. "Not really much more trouble I can be in at this point."

"You think," his voice rung out from inside the tent, making Hermione question if their lupine features were present even in their human state. She prayed to god it was just that Anders happened to have exceptional hearing for entirely incongruous reasons.

She pinched her lips together to keep from answering him back. She wasn't sure what exactly, but something inside her was heeding his warning. She needed to remind herself that just because it felt like this existence was the worst possible, didn't mean it was. Not yet. She had to stay smart, and it was certainly naïve to think Fenrir Greyback's cruelty wouldn't surprise her.

She had to stay one step ahead of these monsters. She had to outlive this. She needed an escape plan.

A thought suddenly struck her and she turned to Anders. "I can't reach the food with these shackles on." She pulled her hands apart, pulling on the short chain between them to emphasise her point.

He bit the inside of his lip, thinking. "Alright." He came closer to her, pulled her wrists up to his eyes, conjured the tiny key and unlocked both shackles from her wrists.

Hermione smiled to herself as he turned away. Her first part of the escape a clear success. Granted that was the easiest part of this plan, and the rest was still to be concocted but, so far, she was succeeding. _One step ahead._

She retrieved several parcels wrapped in grease-proof paper, not knowing or caring if any of them were the ones he was looking for and brought them to a more spacious area between the tents, assuming this is where they would eat. God she was starving.

"You're cooking with me tonight. Can't have the mare vomiting on it all, besides it should be some good training for you." She looked up at Anders with eyes tired but calculating. He recognised smart eyes and guarded himself, raising one brow a fraction, waiting for insubordination.

Could she get him to remove the magic shackles too? She didn't know what they did? How long was the tether? Was it tied to him? To Greyback? Could she run off and live a life with his magic still binding her wrists? She put it all to the back of her mind for now.

"I have never cooked anything in my life." She stated evenly. Maybe if she played super dumb and useless, they'd cut her loose like dead weight.


	4. Uselessness

Anders huffed at her uselessness and wandered over to some other men, perhaps to arrange an alternative cook. In the time it took him to return Hermione had sat herself down, kneeling at the center of the clearing with the packages of what she assumed was the beef joints. She was taking this time to really watch the men around her.

The sun was lowering now and the orange glow through the trees made their skin shine golden and brown and the blueish dark of the creeping night cast shadows beneath their eyes and lips. Many of them were busy setting up tents and hauling logs, maybe for wood. They seemed to do this a lot, working like a little hive. There were arguments here and there but they mostly ended up in laughter and banterous punches to the shoulders of their comrades.

Some men, about four had convened around a large boulder, staring at papers, maybe maps, that were splayed out all over the rock. They seemed to be talking conversationally. Hermione hypothesised that they were discussing plans for tomorrow's trek or conversing about where their rebels could be hiding.

She looked around her for a brief moment. They all seemed busy, no look in at her. She sat on her own, shackle free. She breathed out slowly. She leant against the ground and got up onto her feet. She looked around and the clearing remained the quiet bustling as it was moments before. She stood up a bit straighter and looked around, still no one had noticed her.

Hermione took three measured steps backwards into the trees behind her before turning and full out sprinting into the forest thick. She felt the wind rushing by her cheeks, her eyes watering, wide open in her adrenaline rush. Her legs powered her forward, unfeeling to all the ache and sore of the day of walking. She sprinted, ran full pelt into the forest and didn't look back. Straight into the stomach of freedom, the beginning of the rest of her life; her escape in front of her.

Some hundred metres away Greyback's ears caught the sound "alpha?" A younger packmate's tentative question caught his attention and he followed the boy's eye to the girl disappearing between the trees ahead.

His hand unconsciously closed around the girth of invisible magical chain tethering him to the girl sprinting off into the forest, just beyond the range of his eyesight. His eyes trained on the direction the girl ran in and he felt someone take the flask of water out of his left hand. He flared his nostrils and smiled before taking off in Hermione's direction.

Hermione ran without looking back, her body vibrating with energy she hadn't felt in months. Her legs propelled her far beyond what she had thought they were capable of and a laugh struck deep within her windpipe, anticipation of her freedom forcing its way out as she ran further, almost for a full minute before the full weight of a tree came crashing into her back.

The force knocked her forward into a bush and she scratched her face as she hit the dirt floor beneath her. Long claws gripped her shoulder and flipped her onto her back. God she wished it was a tree that had fallen on her, its suffocating embrace would be far more welcome.

Greyback straddled her waist, his smile menacing. His hair was wild and his toothy grin panted down at her, his chest lifting with heavy breath. He leaned forward and grabbed her by the throat.

Hermione's hands encircled his wrist in a silent plea for him to not kill her. Or maybe kill her, just don't make it last too long. He tangled his other hand into the mess of hair behind her head and picked her up like a scolded puppy. She kicked out somewhat but soon gave up, tears streaming down her face.

How could she have been so _stupid_? Did she honestly think she could outrun this colossal problem? She'd only sprinted right into bigger problems, the biggest one of all holding her up by the jaw.

She felt several hairs _ping_ out of her head in his unforgiving grasp and her cheeks felt wet cold to the air; she was sure she was bleeding.

Greyback gripped her throat tightly, his fingers and thumb supported her jaw as he bodily lifted her by the head, bringing her closer to his face as he stood up straight. He growled menacingly in her face and laughed, the two opposing sounds concocting in her ears to make some sort of ominous gravelly discord.

She winced against the sound and the look on his face.

"Thought you'd run off, did you?" He chuckled to himself. "Dumb cunt." He sighed and shook his head as if she were a silly child he needed to reprimand.

He brought her up closer to his face and took a long sniff of her neck and hair. He exhaled his satisfaction loudly in her ear and Hermione felt her whole body curl into itself in pure discomfort. "Maybe if we make friends…" he panted, "you'll be more inclined to stick around." He took a long lick of her neck and ground his crotch into her thigh, laughing to himself when she whimpered.

He seemed to like this. Chasing his prey turned him on, and holding a limp helpless girl in his hands seemed to be exactly what he wanted from her. Hermione swore she'd do whatever to not be held like this again.

Greyback then threw her to the floor where Anders caught her, and march-dragged her back to the camp.

"I want her chained thoroughly from now on. Stick a stake in the ground, tie her to your belt, I don't care. I just want her within arm's reach. Sick of chasing down my own property, Anders."

Anders tightened his hand around her wrist. "She couldn't have gotten that far, Alpha. The girl's bound to you anywa—"

"I don't give a shit about whatever spell you've got on her. I want a good solid chain. Something that's not going to let her run for a half a fucking mile before I have to run her down again."

Hermione's tears rolled silently down her bleeding cheeks as she listened to their conversation. It felt like she'd had a rug she hadn't even known she was standing on, ripped out from underneath her yet again. She was tied to them like a dog and it felt hopeless. The exertion of the day and her sprint now caught up to her and her muscles felt as though they were beginning to peel off of her bones.

Her legs became harder to drag and she felt her spirit sink deep into her gut, followed swiftly by her hope.

Anders' large hand tightened once more around her wrist as they neared the camp, still being set up. He shoved her in front of himself and Greyback, closer to the centre of the camp. Anders circled around her and pushed downwards on her shoulder so that her legs buckled and her knees hit the earth. He pulled her hair back and tilted her head upwards to face Greyback in front of her.

Hermione tried once more to suppress the bubbling of tears in her chest, keep her weakness hidden deep within. Do not let them think they have won this.

Greyback spat into the dirt at his feet and approached her.

"The fuck did you think would happen, cunt?"

She tried to answer with something clever or snarky, something to piss him off but nothing came besides a chin wobble and a cold glare striking out from underneath her brow at him.

"You were just going to run off into the world? Going to run from me?" He took a step forward and brought one booted foot up to her throat, pressing slowly into her neck and trapping it to Anders' leg behind her. "Stupid mistake, wasn't it?"

Some of the men seemed to stop what they were doing and watch the interaction. The woman too, Aanka Greyback, seemed engaged. Hermione could see Greyback's shoulders rising as the clear display of dominance before his pack progressed. He was proud; he was in his element. God she wanted to take him down a peg, to put it lightly - his pride was her enemy.

Greyback growled. "You need to start answering me when I speak, or I am going to get a bit fucking miffed, Girly."

Hermione stayed silent. He could take a fat lot from her and oh he had, but her voice was hers. It could not be taken.

He laughed darkly, not a speck of mirth on his face. "Alright, cunt." He looked up to Anders behind her. "She's yours then. Put her to use."

Anders circled back around to face her and started to undo his belt.

 _Oh god no._ Before she could even scramble backwards away from him, he had grabbed her hair, pulling her face closer to his crotch and forced her mouth onto his cock. She immediately choked and spat, trying to force the intrusion from the back of her throat but he held her head still. Her eyes watered and her shoulders heaved with each reflexive gag against the cock in her mouth.

She felt Greyback's thick crusty hand in her hair, petting her gently. "If you don't use your mouth to answer me, I'm going to have to put it to use myself." He smiled at her softly.

The foul tasting cock finally withdrew from her mouth and hung before her nose, half hard. She couldn't bare to look at Anders, she knew his face wold be void of cruelty and she couldn't handle his all too reasonable expression right now. She turned her eyes to Greyback who was knelt by her side.

His face was hard and he raised one brow slowly, not even having to give an order for her to speak.

"You really expect me not to try?" She rasped through ragged breath.

He seemed to contemplate that for a moment, examining her face for what she meant. He breathed out sharply through his nose. "I'm feeling generous today, Hermione." The way he said her name made her shudder, she genuinely preferred 'cunt' from those lips. "Be a good little slave now and behave, or my patience is going to start wearing very thin."

Despite his love of the chase and the cruelty of it all, reprimanding did seem to be a task for him. He seemed annoyed. Maybe she could annoy him so much that he would just let her go.

He stood up and looked down at her for a brief moment. His annoyance disappeared suddenly and that awful sadistic grin came back. "Lick him for me."

Hermione was stunned silent.

He chuckled deep and growled. "Lick his cock good now, for everyone to see."

Hermione looked around, aware that everyone was watching and not a soul was stepping in. Some seemed a bit too eager to watch, unashamedly excited at the performance. She bit her lips shut tight.

He grabbed her head now tight, his claws piercing her scalp and she cried out in pain. "Suck." He commanded her.

Anders used her open-mouthed sob as an opportunity to shove his foul cock into her mouth and start fucking it gently.

She was so worn, so incredibly exhausted. She felt the tears sting her bleeding cheek and gulped and sucked on Ander's thick cock. Greyback used his claws to help keep her head still as Anders pumped his stiff cock in and out of her, his balls pressing against her chin through his jeans. She closed her eyes and let it happen, aware that there was little else she could do. His cock tasted salty and unwashed. She flinched when her teeth grazed his bulging head as he sped up, in fear of a beating, but Anders didn't seem to notice or mind.

Greyback watched on with power and arousal as her helpless little mouth suckled at the wolf's cock. His claws tightened unconsciously into her head and he relished in her cries. He licked his lips and smiled lasciviously.

It didn't take long for Anders to be rutting into her mouth and a grunted growl signalled the release that filled her throat. Anders own hands held her face tight to the base of his cock, forcing her to swallow sickly bitter semen.

His arms became more slack and he pushed her head away, zipping himself back into his jeans.

Greyback then released her too, and she sniffled and curled her lip at the taste on her tongue. Greyback patted her on the head then, "good girl. Do as you're told now." He looked at Anders then, "chain her." He walked away, back toward whatever he had been doing before and the others around them followed suit, returning to their less prolific activities.

Anders looked down at her and she looked back with hatred in her very bones.

He retrieved his wand from inside his jacket pocket and conjured shackles and a chain, leading to a steak in the ground outside his own tent. He didn't take any time indulging in the silence between them now, moving on quickly to retrieving the oil and utensils from inside the tent as before.

She watched as he set fire to a stick with the flick of his wand. "Dig a trench where you're sat, I want the fire to be bigger."

He chucked the stick in with a pile of wood behind to heat slowly.

Was he really pretending he hadn't just used her like a whore? He was not purposefully avoiding her eye - this was not awkward for him.

She glared at him. "Fuck you," she whispered.

He sighed and turned to face her. "You really didn't learn what your position is here?"

"Oh you made that perfectly clear," she ground out, crawling to where the pile of sticks sat behind her. "I'm your personal little whore and everyone's slave." She whispered in contempt, still trying to swallow that awful taste.

He slapped the back of her head then, hard, and it rang through her ears. "You need to watch your language, girl. I have a short patience and I may not want to police you anymore than you want to be policed but I will _not_ be spoken to like that by some bitch, am I clear?" His face was cold and hard and he meant what he said. He was assertive like Snape was, but not cruel and she couldn't help but be reminded of Remus. They weren't at all alike and yet his clear authority felt somewhat familiar and almost nice in a way. Almost.

She nodded silently. He huffed. Before he could turn away to continue, she cleared her throat. "Is my cheek going to get infected?" She asked quietly.

He knelt down closer to her and examined it, seemed satisfied. "Dig that pit and then come see me. I'll get it cleaned." He turned then and walked off.

Her fingers felt the graze on her cheek lightly and Hermione sighed. She got up from the floor and entered the tent, the chains jingling as she walked. She plucked a metal flask from a chest, unscrewed the lid and took a deep draught of water. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she leant up against the dresser and allowed her body to rest a moment. She was pushing the reminders of that awful rape back into her mind. _Get through this first_.

She ached so so much and she wanted to sleep desperately. Knowing full well she'd be in for much worse if she didn't do as Anders said, she left the tent with his flask in hand and made her way back to the pit. She started to dig out the pit wider to allow room for the fire.

Two men approached her, both had arms laden with wood, she supposed for the fire. They dumped it at the wood already burning. One of them she recognised from cleaning duty that morning, Tye James his name was. He was laughing.

"You really are mouthy aren't you?" He asked, giggling.

She glared at him but didn't say anything. She was tired of the abuse at this point, at least for today, so ignored them and continued widening the fire pit with her hands.

"Aw come on, I'm sorry. I mean you're all fiery when you chat back." He laughed but the other man, blonder with golden stubble, interjected, "nah he meant _mouthy_. I'd like some." He unzipped his jeans and revealed his cock, decidedly more limp and decidedly less impressive than the many that had been shoved in her face in the last day and a half.

She stared at it and then at him and then back at the dirt at her hands.

"Jesus." Tye rolled his eyes at the blonder man. "you've got dirt on you." He said to Hermione, indicating her face and walked away.

The blonde man remained though, clasping his dick in his hand and wagged it at Hermione. "Come on, girly, give it a suck _just_ like you like it."

"Cutters!"

The man turned to a woman's voice calling out over the clearing.

"Put your fucking prick away." Aanka Greyback approached them by the fire, Hermione blushed and looked down from the woman who had watched her suck a dick just moments ago, _as if she should even be embarrassed._

Cutters laughed, "oh Mrs wants a lick then," he laughed and wagged it at her. "Fine by me, sweet cheeks."

Aanka's lip curled in visible disgust, "you're playing a dangerous game, don't make me bite that off."

Hermione watched him take a step toward her, invading her space. "Mmm, I like a bit of kink."

She didn't step any closer to him but she didn't back down either. Hermione was interested. "Don't let your sexual frustration forget who you're talking to." Aanka said, voice controlled and sharp eyes unwavering.

The man seemed to consider her for a moment and then shove himself back into his jeans and walk away disgruntled. Aanka turned to walk away from her but Hermione had to say something, something inside her burning to make contact with the only other woman she had seen in weeks.

"Thank you!"

Aanka turned and looked at her for a moment, nodded and walked away.

Once again Hermione was left alone with her thoughts. She dug up the dirt with her hands cupped, enjoying the feeling of wet alive earth. It felt nourishing, even if not to her. It was alive and it was healthy. The wood in the middle was soon burning brighter, but she assumed it was contained and controlled with magic. She didn't know a spell for that, it would have been handy. She fed the fire some more wood, her mind elsewhere.

She wished she had just let Aanka walk away. She didn't need to thank her. Hermione couldn't kid herself, if Cutters had tried to force it she would have had no way to stop and she was grateful but where had this woman been before? Where had she been when Anders and Greyback humiliated her, where had she been when Hermione was raped repeatedly by the lot of them? She clearly wasn't a good woman. Hermione couldn't trust her in any event.

She was confused, Tye didn't seem wholly bad, although somewhat insensitive. Anders was as confusing as always and Aanka remained no less of an enigma than when Hermione had first learned of her. Hermione had certainly never been the best at reading people or social interactions but she felt she had only gotten worse since being here. This solitude between her and this controlled fire was the most peaceful interaction she had experienced in a long time.

Her peace didn't last as Anders approached her once again, hand on his hips. "Should be big enough. Woods and Tanaka are on food tonight so you can leave the rest to them." He nodded in the direction of the tent. "Let's get you cleaned up."

She got up to her feet. "With any luck a bacterial infection would have already set in."

He huffed a laugh. "With any luck." He led her across the main room of the tent and pulled back the curtain that separated the bedroom room the rest of the tent. "Pull that chair over here."

She pulled the cosy red armchair up to the edge of the bed and sat in it, watching him bring some baskets and pouches of, she assumed, medical supplies with him to sit on the bed in front of her.

"Where does it hurt most?" He asked, rooting through a wooden box by his side.

"Everywhere, but I suppose my face… and my head." She quickly added, remembering the headache that was now coming back to her.

He nodded and doused some cotton in sterile liquid, and held it up to her open cheek. She winced but held still as he did his best to clean the dirt and grit from the wound. She watched his face as he worked, his eyebrows knitted together in concentration.

She sighed at the silence, "Aanka Greyback talked to me." She paused when he hummed his acknowledgment. "Well not to me. She talked to some guy, Cutters? She actuall—"

"Cutters?" He looked at her then, "what was she doing talking to Cutters?"

"Oh um, she was saving me really," she recalled wryly. "He was making a good impression of you with the exposing himself and asking for head and all."

He scoffed, "I didn't ask."

That surprised her. She thought maybe he'd at least have decency to be embarrassed by his behaviour earlier but then not much seemed to embarrass him, she supposed. She narrowed her eyes. "You're despicable."

He prodded her a bit harder with the pad of cotton and she winced.

"You best get used to things around here. Alpha doesn't like insolence and neither do I. You step out of line under my watch and I will put you back in your place." He put the soiled cotton into a bowl and picked up another for the cut in her eyebrow she hadn't noticed.

She scoffed, "you know I don't buy that you didn't enjoy it. I swallowed all that enjoyment so trust me, I know full well that punishing me isn't exactly a burden for you. You can stop acting like it is."

He chuckled then, his laugh genuine and warm. "I never said I didn't enjoy getting my cock sucked, even a lousy mouth is a mouth." He ignored her open-mouthed dismay at being called lousy. "At the end of the day these things wouldn't happen if you just toe the line."

"Toe the line?! First of all, the line is constantly moving! There's barely a line at—"

He slapped her. It was her good cheek but it still stung and what's more, he continued dressing her eyebrow as gently as he had been before, using his wand to seal the cut into a neat scarred line above her eyebrow. She was stunned silent.

"You need to wake up and realise that this is not school. This isn't even war anymore. The time for your insolence and back chatting and fighting against has passed. I'm well aware the war didn't work out for you but I'm not sorry and you shouldn't be feeling sorry for yourself either."

He threw this cotton into the bowl too, muttering a "turn" to get her to spin in her seat. Anders continued talking as he looked through her hair for the wounds to her scalp.

"You need to listen to me now, girl. You are not amongst men, these people are beasts and we have different rules to humans. You are not a wolf and you will not speak to me as if you have the rights of one." He grunted. "Times have changed and so have your circumstances and these wounds are going to get bigger and more painful if you don't find that damn line and pay it some heed."

She stayed silent this time because nothing he had said was wrong. Factually speaking, it was all correct: no one here was going to feel sorry for her and she had to realise that circumstances had changed drastically. With Harry and Ron dead and any other sympathisers fleeing the country, she was on her own now and she had to get used to it. But how? How on earth could she possibly accept this? Hermione started to doubt herself then. Had she not already accepted the change? She had just conjured up the image of her dead best friends in her mind and not a single tear was shed. She was becoming something she didn't know existed inside of her. _She was becoming a Slytherin_ , she thought.

"He got you good," Anders muttered, interrupting her spiral of self-hate. She realised he was referencing the punctures in her head. She refrained from nodding in agreement. It felt nice to have fingers in her hair, gentle and calm. His cool exterior was infuriating but right now, she appreciated it. His practical and detatched demeanor was a comfortable distance, like doctor and patient. Maybe this was what care felt like. It had been a while since she felt any sort of intimacy, maybe this was nice. She enjoyed the physical pleasure at having individual strands of her nest-like hair separated with efficient hands.

"How come you never finished healer training?" She asked curiously. She thought he would make a good doctor if he wasn't a murderous rapist.

"I did," he said. "I just didn't graduate as a healer."

She furrowed her brow. "Because you're a war criminal." She said matter-of-factly.

He huffed behind her. "There was no war at that time actually. Because I lied on my application." He didn't sound ashamed but she was shocked.

"About your grades?"

"Well," he said, "about the fact I had gone to school at all, about the fact I was human." He added.

She understood that, Remus was denied from everything he applied for before Dumbledore accepted him as an employee.

"Why did you even apply for a job at St. Mungo's?"

"Don't do anything you're good at for free," he said wisely.

Before she could continue questioning him, an east-asian man with a neatly trimmed beard and a limp interrupted them with the wave of the tent flap. "Alpha wants you."

Anders huffed. "I'm coming," he said in dismissal. He stood and put the bowl and medical supplies back away. He hovered at the dresser for a moment and Hermione watched him. Turning back to her, he sighed. "Break apart that nest on your head and I'll patch you up later."

Hermione's hand reached up to feel the frizz as he left. She'd be offended but her hair did feel pretty frightful after over a month of not washing or brushing it. She sighed and got up, her legs much more tired now that she had sat for a little bit. She dug around in the boxes in the corner of the tent, finding no tools to help her detangle.

Eventually she found a thick, wide-toothed wooden comb in a dresser drawer beside the bed. She sat back down on the chair, its seat cushy and luxurious for her over-worked legs and got to work on her frizz. Her eyes stung as the hair pulled on the open wounds on her scalp but she had felt worse. She had seen worse, for sure.

Her mind wandered to dinner and immediately her stomach growled lowly at the thought. She wondered how much she would be allowed to eat at dinner. Maybe she should just play their game, at least for a second serving. Without another thought, she felt the wooden comb give and snap, both halves of it wedged inside her matted hair.


	5. A Day's Sweat

Anders ran his hands through his black hair and down the back of his neck, wiping a day's sweat and grime from his skin. He nodded at the men sitting down for drinks and the two cooks heating oil at the fire as he passed the clearing, in the direction of the largest tent.

Lifting the tent flap he wrapped on the wooden tent pole with his knuckles. "You wanted to see me?"

Greyback nodded without looking up from the scroll splayed out in front of him, and beckoned Anders in. "I want your confirmation on chartered ground from today." He pointed at the map with his wand and the blue mark grew across the area they had covered, indicating what was not occupied by rebels.

Anders wandered over and looked at the map with him. "If they have word we've moved, they wouldn't chance coming south. They know that's where we're coming from."

"How can you be sure they know?" Aanka's voice called from behind them. She came to a stop on Greyback's other side and looked down at the map on the table.

Anders sighed. "Well we can't. But either way we know they're moving. The scent wouldn't change like that if they were stationary."

Greyback looked down at the witch, his large paw coming to rest on the back of her neck, squeezing lightly. She was used to this, his domineering gestures of possession or control. She didn't say anything, partly because it wasn't worth it but mostly because she couldn't bring herself to care anymore.

"Go lie down, you need rest." He commanded, turning back to the map at his hands.

"Actually," she said, "I was thinking a bath." She yawned as she said, stretching her back and shoulders out.

He looked at her again, his brow low and uncompromising. "Lie down."

Aanka recognised the look on his face and nodded quickly, looking to get out of his arms reach and quickly. The man's short temper was not to be challenged, especially not in front of his second in command. She disappeared into the bedroom, drawing the curtain behind her.

Greyback watched her go. "Damn woman is getting mouthy." He growled. "Going to talk herself into a good slap."

Anders chuckled to himself. "I don't think she meant to, Alpha. You have to give the mare credit for her hormones."

Greyback grumbled, "I won't have my bitch thinking she can call shots, excuses be damned." He summoned a chair behind him and sat into it, still staring at the map, compass on desk.

Anders hummed. "She was speaking with Cutters earlier," Greyback looked up with menace in his eyes so Anders hurried on. "Not at her request I'm sure, I can keep a close eye on him if you'd like."

Greyback bit back his possessive anger. With pheromones running high, his hackles raised at the very smell of his wife and the thought of a pest like Cutters so much as looking at her when he wasn't around made his blood boil. He wanted to rut her right now. "I'll keep an eye on him myself. Thank you." He ground out.

Anders nodded. "Still, I'd take an assuming shewolf over that backchatting little witch any day."

Greyback laughed then, thinking of the dirty slave woman they had taken in. "She's giving you trouble, Anders. A good proper beating knocked that right out of Aanka, you know."

Anders grumbled his complaints to the room. "It was more than one beating Alpha. She was defiant for a good few years." He laughed at the thought, "I'd say she's only quieting down now because of that belly slowing her down."

Greyback was proud of the belly he'd grown in his bitch - good strong cubs. The thought had his cock itching. He shook his head of it, for now. He'd mount her later if he still had the energy.

"You're being too soft with Granger." He warned.

Anders shrugged. "She's not a bitch, it has to be said. She can neither take the beating nor can we expect her to act like one."

"She'll act like a good bitch if my pack is feeding her." He stood now, angrier. "Ungrateful little fuck."

"Oh she will, believe me." Anders assured him, "I just don't expect it right away, that's all. Besides," he added, "she's still too week for me to pin her down every time she's out of line. I plan on putting some meat on those bones first."

Greyback nodded, "she has fifteen days."

Silence hung between the two men for a moment, their minds on different matters. Perhaps Greyback was right, Anders thought. Maybe a firmer hand was required. Unlike the Alpha however, Anders did not particularly enjoy taming a woman. Whilst Greyback had plenty of fun fucking sense into his wife when they first met, moulding her into a respectable and obedient bitch, Anders appreciated submission in a woman – as most wolves did. He couldn't fuck his frustration out, her insolence just made him angry, not horny. But then he _was_ a wolf, and her tight cunt had been too sweet to let it go to waste that first night.

Greyback chuckled at the look on Anders' face. "Your opinion on the map? You can fuck her after."

Anders coughed over his smirk and looked down at the map. "He's not a stupid man, the rebel leader. He knows how to evade us."

Greyback nodded, "but he's said to be harbouring weaker mudbloods. If he is, he can't risk apparition, or moving west to throw us off. The safest course for them is to continue running to the North."

Anders nodded. "So we continue north," he thought aloud. "What do we do when we hit the coast?"

"If we get that far without catching up to them, we'll leave snatchers there and keep moving. If they try crossing the channel, we should know about it."

Anders nodded thoughtfully. He was an elusive rebel, this Kingsley Shacklebolt.

* * *

Hermione wandered out of the tent at some point to the smell of thick beef strips sizzling on a wide black tray above the fire. The Asian man from before, a man named Tanaka, was using a wand to blare a fiery heat down above the meat whilst the other man, whom Hermione assumed was Woods, turned them with a pair of tongs.

The smell made her stomach growl and she clutched it in her hand as if to quell her hunger. Without an order, she didn't know what to do. Her headache could not handle another beating if she were to step out of line. She wanted to stay as small as possible as the food was being cooked, out of sight and out of mind.

She stayed near the door of the tent, watching the men around her. Tye caught her eye and gave her a wink. She wasn't so disgusted by him, he didn't mean to be so brutally insensitive to her. He was friendly, she thought. Perhaps he could be a sort of ally, even if he was massively annoying.

Anders and Greyback exited a large tent on the other side of the fire. She watched them take their seats in camp chairs. She wondered if it was safe to approach them now, her instincts and heart telling her to get nowhere near them after the attack earlier. Instead she looked around her, for her other options and quickly realised she didn't have any. Perhaps Tye was a safe bet to sit by, she thought.

She crossed the space between them and sat on the floor beside him. Another short man, whom Hermione had not heard talk yet, handed a plate of beef and potatoes to Tye.

"Ho ho ho, now this is a sexy little meal." Tye licked his lips, eyes glued to his plate. "What do you think, mudblood? You must be hungry."

Hermione smiled meekly and nodded, "should I get myself some or..?" She left the question hanging, wanting to be cautious. She couldn't risk breaking any more manners today.

Tye nodded as he tucked into his food. "Just grab a plate from that pile and they'll fill it for you."

She nodded in understanding and got up, taking a plate from the stack on the floor and brought it to the two cooks at the fire. She didn't hold it out for them or say anything but they seemed to understand her request. Tanaka took the plate and paused, sizing her up, before giving her a decidedly smaller portion than Tye and his short friend had.

With the warmth of the buttery potatoes seeping through the metal plate and into her hands beneath, she couldn't bring herself to be anything but grateful.

She took a seat next to Tye and shoveled a potato into her mouth, salty and creamy and starchy and so, so good.

Hermione just ate for a moment, contemplating little but the brilliance of food. One thing about her new life with these awful people was sure: she was being kept fed like a dog. She supposed if they really wanted her to suffer, they'd starve her too. So, despite the evil that surrounded her, she was clearly a step up from the Malfoy dungeons.

"Might want to slow down, don't want another chunder like earlier." Tye laughed to himself.

She nodded and heeded his advice. She really wanted to keep this meal down.

Tye ate his food lazily, smiling to himself when he ripped apart the beef in his hands. Hermione watched him. "Why aren't we using forks?"

Tye shrugged. "Don't need em for this, saves washing up."

She nodded. "Why don't you use your wand to lift the food?" She nodded in the direction of some others doing just that.

He smiled politely at her. "I'm not a wizard."

She blinked her eyes wide open. "You're not? You're a muggle and you know about us?"

He chuckled to himself, "well yeah, I mean I am a werewolf. Bite was a bit of a shock I suppose but nothing wrong with being a muggle y'know."

Suddenly she felt a lot more interested in him. "The only other muggles I know, that know of wizards and witches, are my parents. If you're a muggle, how did you get bitten?"

"Bad tinder date." He joked. At her perplexed expression he corrected himself. "I ran away from home when I was like sixteen. GCSEs weren't going brilliant and I couldn't be fucked with anything. Went to London, got attacked by a crackhead on the bus." He laughed a little, not really finding it that funny. "Only it wasn't a crackhead."

Hermione felt sorrow for the man in front of her, he was only young and he, too, had had his life ripped away from him. "What about your parents?" She asked.

Tye just shrugged, his short locks lifted by his shoulder. "Fostered. No life for me out there, Mudblood. I'm a free bird here, this is where I needed to be."

Hermione was thoughtful for all of four seconds before she clocked on to the nickname.

"So why the hell have you been calling me Mudblood?"

He smiled a big charming smile then, "Fun nickname!" He took a bite out of his beef, his silent friend giggling beside him.

"It's a slur, thank you."

He raised his fingers and danced them in front of her, "Oooo, a slur!" He parodied her voice and laughed, immediately reminding Hermione of a dumb school boy. She had thought maybe he'd understand, they shared a heritage. But apparently a similar colour skin, nor a non-magical family line, was not enough to seal a bond of camaraderie between her and Tye.

She shuffled away from him and finished her meal on her own, already realising she was going to have to forget his dickishness and get on with him at some point if she was to have a single friend here. For now though, she crunched through the extra rare beef in silence, unthinking and feeling sorry for herself.

Handing her empty plate to this evening's designated washers, she turned back towards the seating, men all sat around her, varying in age and size. The forest canopy was dark now, only the waxing moon to keep them company, and the fire cast deep and danced shadows across them all. Tye was chatting away to his silent friend. Cutters looked shifty and sleazy, sharing a bottle of alcohol with some of the older men. Her eyes fell on Anders, his stern eyes and knotted brow. He seemed to always be contemplating something important.

He caught her looking at him and she had the shame in her to blush and look away. When she did look back though, he cocked his head, gesturing to come closer.

She'd rather be comforted by his presence from a distance and not admit it, she thought, but she couldn't be bothered to say no to him. She walked over and took a seat on the rough dirt floor at his side. As she did, her nose picked up the gentle burnt smell of cannabis and she looked at him questioningly.

He wordlessly understood her look and pointed to the Alpha, in his camp chair, smoking a fat joint. She stared at Greyback incredulously. "Greyback is a stoner." She whispered to herself, trying to understand this awfully strange situation she found herself in.

Anders barked a laugh and smiled a genuine smile at her. He was calm and cool like nothing happened. Like he didn't advocate her beating and force her to perform sexual acts in humiliation. He seemed almost comforting again and Hermione held onto it – it felt good.

Anders took a swig from the bottle of firewhiskey in his hands. He caught her looking at it and handed it to her.

"Oh no, I've never…" At his insistence she took the bottle from him and took a tentative sip. It burnt as it went down, reminding her of the only other sip she had had before at Bill Weasley's wedding. Back then it had made her cough her insides out, but now it only warmed her throat and chest. It was rough but she managed another two sips, licking her lips as it went down.

"Good shit, this." Greyback said and blew a puff of smoke from his chest, passing the joint to Anders. Hermione watched the smoke roll in the air, the tendrils folding in on themselves to produce the image of a trio of wolves chasing each other in a circle.

"Where's this one from?" Anders asked as he took a drag.

Greyback shrugged one shoulder. "Scabior got it from a snatcher." He scratched his beard, lifting his chin to the moon, the way a cat does to the warm midday sun.

Anders nodded as he took a drag, the stench of it filling Hermione's nose. She watched him make a face at the heat of the smoke against his throat and chest. "It's smooth," he agreed before exhaling it into another anamorphic cloud in front of Hermione's eyes. The smoky wolves chasing each other once again before drifting lazily into the night.

Hermione breathed calmly. Her mind unthinking and blank, she let this moment settle in front of her.

Before long she was interrupted by the low growl of Greyback and the hair on the back of her neck immediately stood on end. She turned to see what had caught his attention, only to see him pulling Aanka into his lap. She rested in the corner of his left thigh, dwarfed by his larger frame, and lay her head to rest against his chest.

"You have that lie down like I said?" Greyback spoke softly to his wife, brushing a gentle paw through her matted curls.

Hermione watched Aanka nod silently, sleepily. "It would be nice to have a bath though, if we can." Aanka spoke with a sort of subtle drawl. Whilst it wasn't quite obvious, Hermione knew she grew up in a wealthy area.

Greyback nodded, petting her head all the while. "If I can find you a proper place to take a bath, you can." He was almost smiling as he spoke, and Hermione couldn't decide if he was pleased or proud or smug. If she didn't know him, she'd have been looking at a smitten man.

Anders passed the joint back to Greyback, who took a long drag from it.

Hermione looked up at Anders tentatively. "I was wondering…" she paused, half embarrassed to ask him and half scared to speak out of turn.

"Yes?" He raised a brow in question.

"The comb…" she reached up into her hair and tugged on the snapped comb halves still wedged in her hair. "I didn't mean to, could you fix it?"

He sighed, not really meaning it, and gestured for her to sit in front of him, between his legs. She positioned herself as he wanted and then felt the gentle probing of his calculated hands in her hair.

"I can fix the comb, but I'm going to have to get it out first." He mumbled behind her.

Greyback huffed a laugh from his camp chair. "I've got a few spells that will help." Gesturing to the curly top sitting in his lap. "Though not as fun as a good tug," he chuckled lowly to himself.

"A tug should do, I think." Anders said, getting to work at slowly and gently working the hair out from around the teeth of the comb. His fingers were systematic and melodic against her aching and split scalp. She sat quietly, closed her eyes and lapped up the comforting attention.

After some time, Anders whispered. "You could do with a bath too." And she was just awake enough to catch it.


	6. 0 to 100

Life in the pack was a very uneventful a lot of the time. She spent the last few days on 0, revving up to 100 in no time whenever Greyback got in a mood. However she was thankful that none of his recent moods had been directed at her – they were mostly at the greasy blonde man, Cutters. In the two days since Anders picked the comb from her hair and healed the punctures in her head, they had traveled at least 60 kilometers by foot. Hermione was tired definitely but she had eaten more over the last two days than she had since before she went on the run during the war, and it helped. Staying full did more for her mental health than she could ever truly appreciate before.

They trekked over sparse forest, sometimes crossing fields only to enter forest once again. They came into contact with no one else. At one point Fenrir had snatched a low-flying sparrow straight out of the sky with his hand. Hermione had turned away but couldn't help hearing the sickening crunch of the poor thing's neck betwixt his meaty paw.

His aggression had of course worried her – his penchant to do harm was so obvious it had become a part of her daily life. So Hermione had kept her head down as best she could. She couldn't help it, she was terrified of the beast. Of all of them actually, but there was a special place in the pit of her gut reserved for Greyback's toothy smile. It was no wonder, being surrounded by such crass and overt violence had really played with her mind and the security that her full belly had offered was often wicked away by the images of pain and suffering replaying over and over in her head. The feeling of Anders' rough and hardening cock jamming into her throat. The sticky, rancid cum he'd force fed her. The way Greyback's calloused hand had grated the skin of her face. The wounds on her cheek had been healed but those in her mind projected the images onto her closed eyelids every night before bed. Silent crying had exhausted her for the last four nights until finally she could fall asleep.

But it wasn't so much what had happened to her that played with her fears most. Not surprisingly, it was what was to come. She had heard from a conversation between Anders and a man called Appleby that the full moon was just eleven days away. The thought had stayed with her. She was almost too afraid to ask what their plan for her was, lest she find out that this would be the night they really planned to kill her.

No. _They have to keep me alive_ , she thought to herself as she climbed over a fence with the group. _Voldemort made that clear,_ she was sure. They had to keep her safe from themselves then.

Trotting closer to Anders up ahead, she resolved herself to ask one of them. She approached the group of them at the front, Greyback leading with his eyes cast forward, scanning the scenery as he walked. He was speaking to Anders about something that clearly annoyed him; he had a thick gravelly voice that barely dodged his massive sharp teeth as he spoke, as if his voice had to manoeuvre around his very anger in order to come out of his mouth.

She fell in line behind Anders, unknowingly mimicking Aanka's position slightly behind Greyback, and waited for a lull in the conversation. She patted Anders on the arm but when she had his attention, she froze. Maybe now was a bad time. Why was she doing this in front of Greyback? _Too late now_ , she thought. The three werewolves were waiting for the reason for her intrusion.

"I just… I wanted to ask abou—Well I've been thinking about the full moon and…" The panic was visible on her face at the very thought of the full moon.

Greyback hijacked her thought with a pleasured growl. "Mmm, the moon." He gave a dark laugh, "Are you scared, witch?"

Aanka cast a look that almost challenged Hermione to say no, she wasn't scared. It would have been the most blatant lie. "Yes." Hermione said plainly, "I am."

Anders' look at Greyback gave Hermione's fears some credence. "That's a good point, Alpha. What's the plan for her when the full moon rises?"

He shrugged a shoulder as he walked. "Gorge ourselves."

Anders looked contemplatively, "A cage maybe? Can't exactly send her off into the woods alone. She'd be eaten just as easily out there." He spoke to Greyback as if Hermione herself wasn't there, but she was listening too intently to notice.

"Could tie the cunt up a tree. Wolves don't climb trees." Greyback chuckled to himself.

"If she falls though, Alpha." Anders noted.

"If she falls, you'll be the first to bite the witch." Greyback noted gruffly.

Aanka sighed, rubbing a tired back. "Just conjure a warded cage and be done with it."

Her tone alone was a step too far. Greyback halted in his path and the whole group stopped too. He turned to face his wife, looking down at her, her nose to his chest.

The whole camp of snatchers stood silent, watching the mute exchange intently until Greyback broke the potent stillness.

"I do hope you're not trying to be smart, Aanka." He growled out. His voice was low, controlled and deadly. Hermione could feel her heart pounding in her chest. "That's an awfully ballsy tone for such a small little bitch like you. Are you feeling big today?"

Aanka shook her head no, not meeting his gaze.

"Hmm, I'm not sure about that, Bitch." He said, lowering his face to invade her gaze, stepping closer into her personal space. Hermione watched in silence, as did all of them. The tension in the open forest air was thick enough to cut.

She watched Aanka meet her husband's menacing, predatory gaze finally. "That's not what I meant, Alpha. I'm sorry for the tone. I'm tired, hormonal. I forgot myself."

He lifted a clawed paw to Aanka's throat, grasping it gently. "Mind you don't do it again." He said lowly, squeezing her neck gently before letting go and continuing his trek through the woods.

Aanka's face turned sour as he turned his back to her, her temper showing finally. Her eyes were dark and piercing and her top lip curled minutely in a snarl. Whilst treated similarly, Hermione could not make the mistake that herself and Aanka were alike. This woman was clearly one of them.

Aanka scoffed quietly then. "You're welcome for the suggestion, by the way." She muttered under her breath.

In one swift movement, Greyback turned on his heel and swung his arm around to backhand her cheek. The woman stumbled back as the slap resonated on the air. Hermione unconsciously stepped away from the pair of them and watched Greyback close the distance between himself and his wife. He reached his claws into her mass of semi-matted curls and dragged her closer.

The anger on his face was much more visible now. His brow heavy above his nose and his mouth stretched into a cruel smile, the one that only came out when he intended pain.

"I don't care how swollen you are, Bitch." The wicked half smile did not match the cold violence in his eyes. "You will know your place."

Hermione cringed as Greyback yanked her hair downwards, forcing Aanka to her knees. A single bead of blood welled from a tiny cut given by his signet ring, standing stark against her reddening cheek.

Aanka wasn't as desperate as Hermione felt in this situation, but she was clearly contrite. "I'm sorry Alpha. I didn't mean it." Her words were interspersed with kisses to his thighs. It seemed to distract him somewhat from his anger. "My Alpha, please accept my apology. I don't know what came over me."

He considered her for a moment. "Those cubs have made you dumb, haven't they?"

She swallowed and nodded.

"That's not an excuse, Bitch."

She shook her head in agreement with him.

Another moment of silence passed between the group before Anders spoke softly, "It's not uncommon Alpha. Pregnant bitches get like this."

Greyback finally looked up from his wife's position at his feet. He turned to Anders. "How far back was that last farm?"

Anders seemed none too taken aback with the whole dominance display they had all witnessed. "At least a couple of miles."

Greyback nodded. "Good. We'll stop here. Start setting up. This won't take too long." Greyback didn't touch Aanka this time, but muttered "up". She immediately got to her feet. With his large hand on the back of her neck, Greyback walked her away, further into the thickening forest.

It was only minutes before they were out of sight. Hermione expected some lewd conversation or gossiping between the men, like classroom students left alone by the teacher. To her surprise, the men simply started unloading backpacks and resizing tents from their pockets, setting up camp as if that hadn't just happened.

She found the thought of all of that quite unsettling. He had only been so gentle with Aanka, Hermione had thought she had discovered the soft spot of Fenrir Greyback. But she was wrong. The only other woman here had just been publicly humiliated and marched off for what Hermione could only assume was a beating. Her heart sunk in her chest and that hopelessness came back to her. Women were dirt to these men.

"Stop standing around." Anders broke through her reverie. "Help."

She nodded and went through the satchel as he resized their tent in their usual way. Pulling out a flask of water and some shrunken leftover firewood from the previous night, Hermione couldn't stop the thoughts of Greyback's behaviour from wracking her brain. Did Greyback not actually care about her then? Well clearly he did, he was more possessive of her than anything. If he could treat his wife that way, he really must be happy to see Hermione suffer. He enjoyed it, that was clear. Domination was his game, power and violence was how he operated and he loved it.

In the end, Hermione figured their relationship was none of her business. How could she care for Aanka when the woman had turned a blind eye to her own pain so many times before? Aanka had certainly made no effort to befriend her. _Fuck the lot of them,_ she thought. _They're all as bad as each other._

Anders came back from the tent with neatly-wrapped parcels of food.

"We need to make a stop for food soon." He commented.

Hermione's thoughts of werewolf behaviour completely disappeared then. "Where? Diagon Alley? Is there another wizarding village nearby?"

"No…" He eyed up her enthusiasm. "Muggle shops have food too y'know."

"Oh." Hermione deflated somewhat. "I suppose. Well… when will you go get more?"

He chucked the parcels by the pile of wood. "I'll send one of the kids to do it," he said, nodding to some of the younger members of the pack across the clearing. Hermione followed him as he traced back towards the tent.

"Can I go with them?" She asked, sitting across from him at the table. He was looking down at the map in front of them, some parts of the land glowing different colours to indicate what had been covered and what hadn't. He didn't respond to her. "What are you doing?" She asked, looking at the map.

"The sun is still up and it's not late enough to eat yet. I'm getting some work done whilst I have some time." He stretched his hand out towards one of the many boxes littering their tent and a quill and ink pot floated over to him. He took the quill from the air, still reading the map, and pulled a notepad from the inner pocket of his coat. He started etching in some notes from whatever it is he was seeing in the map, every so often making annotations to the map itself. "And no. You can't go out for food. Those men aren't nearly experienced enough to trust with your whereabouts." He looked up from his notations. "Why don't you go outside, enjoy the downtime before the sun goes down?"

"And do what exactly? Chat to my friends?"

"Oi," his tone dropped. "Don't take that tone with me. You want to end up on your knees too?"

That shut her up. She shook her head but didn't apologise. He noticed.

"Apologise to me." He ordered across the table.

She stared at him, her brow low with hatred.

He reached across the map and shoved her head against the flat of the table. She squeaked in fright. He didn't push her head in or hurt her but held her firmly. "I'm waiting." He commanded, voice low.

"I'm sorry!" She apologised hurriedly.

He lifted his hand and she scooted her chair back away from him, out of arm's reach.

"I don't know what is wrong with you women today but I'm sick of the fucking attitude." He said seriously. He was warning her. "You can take as long as you like to learn how to be respectful to the wolves around you, that's up to you. But mark my words, witch. You will pay due respect. I will not house or clothe or feed a belligerent little girl. Now either be useful or be quiet."

Whilst his attitude to women was similar to Greyback, Hermione couldn't help but notice how their tone differed. Greyback had enjoyed the humiliation, the dominance. Anders didn't seem thrilled to treat her this way. He was certainly a lot more pleasant in the few moments they had been amicable. She almost felt as if he were parenting her. Sometimes they'd get along but if she did something he didn't like, he would be strict and enforce his rules. Only her parent's rules had always been reasonable. She didn't want to mistake Anders for a good man.

Perhaps it was best that she did do what he said. He was certainly a lot more enjoyable as company went when she tried to be good. For the sake of making her own life easier, Hermione looked to busy herself. She glanced towards the stacks of boxes. She knew a few of them contained books and scrolls, though she didn't know what about. Oh the _temptation_ though.

She cleared her throat for his attention. "Ahem."

He looked up at her, irritation written in his glare. "What?"

"Sorry." She muttered. "Those books," she nodded to the boxes. "May I have a look at them?"

He sighed, some of his irritation with her slipping away. "The one at the bottom," he gestured with the end of his quill to a box at the bottom of a large stack. "Help yourself to the stuff in there."

Her heart filled more than she expected it to. It had been so long since she read. She left the table and spent some minutes carefully lifting all of the other boxes down out of the way and when she finally got to the bottom one, she knelt to the floor and started to peruse its contents.

Some of the titles she recognised: _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ and _Gruko's Marsh._ These were about the only fictional books she could see. Besides that, she found a copy of _Numerology and Grammatica_ , a text she recognised from her third year Arithmancy reading list. _Advanced Defence Against the Dark Arts_ made an appearance too. Oh it had been so long. She held both the books in her hands and her heart filled with ache and grief for her childhood. It only took the familiar feel of the leather bound tombs, their wrinkled spines under her thumb, to crack.

The wall she'd built from determination and spite could not keep the tsunami of emotion at bay and it washed her clean of the strength she thought she had. Her tears came open and honest and unabashed. Clutching the books to her chest, she heaved and wracked with a dry sob. As each tear came, she was dealt another blow of grief and she shook, rocking back and forth, unaware that she was all but shouting her sorrow into the tent. Hermione was more heartbroken than she ever had been before. The crushing loneliness ate at her stomach and her head pounded as she let out sob after sob, curling into a ball on the floor and cradling her precious schoolbooks with her body. All the suffering she had seen: her parents, Harry, and Ron. Her school destroyed before her eyes, her home burned to the ground. She had nothing left, truly nothing left at all. Her world was full of violence and hate and there was nothing on this earth that she could ever do that would bring back the meaning or the simplicity that her life once carried. She would give anything to go back and just cherish it all a little bit more.

She hadn't noticed Anders' arm around her until after her sobs had slowed. She didn't hate the comfort. She turned into his broad chest and wept into his shirt. Her tears slowed but the heartache remained. She kept her schoolbooks shielded against her body, safe.

Anders reached around her silently, dipped his hand into the box and pulled out a book entitled _Shadows and Spirits._ He placed the book in her hand. "You might like that one. I did." He said quietly, before picking her up in his arms and carrying her the short distance to her fur bed on the floor. After putting her down, he turned and closed the curtain over their sleeping space in the tent, lending her peace and quiet. She didn't open any of the books, but hid under the furs, cradling the books in her arms like a teddy bear, and cried herself to deep sleep.

* * *

There was little light penetrating the curtains when she woke, but the sounds of stirring and chatter in the clearing met her ears so she assumed she hadn't slept long.

She got up out of her furs, leaving the books where they were, and grabbed a waterproof jacket she had been given some days before. Leaving the sleeping area, Hermione found Anders' table vacant. With nothing else to do, she followed the noise outside the tent to find the pack of werewolves beginning to set up for dinner. The clearing was fuller than it had been before with more tents erected. Greyback and Aanka must be back, she noted, as their large tent was standing in a corner across from her, though she didn't see them anywhere.

She took a moment to look around the forest she found herself in. Large deciduous trees overlooked their camp, filling the spaces between their tents, and birds fluttered above in their branches. This camp felt cosier, so tucked into the trees like this. The blue dark sky chased the last orange glow over the horizon and the brilliant reds shone against the full healthy branches. The air smelt crisp and clear and the breathe she took in felt cleansing as it left her lungs once more.

"Granger," she turned to the voice and found Tanaka. "Anders wanted you," he nodded towards the man at the centre, where a fire was being stoked.

"Thanks," she responded. She didn't have a personal reason to hate Tanaka. He was a mild-mannered man, kind face. _A_ _great cook,_ she thought _._ She approached Anders as he finished instructing Tye and another youngish man whom she didn't remember the name of.

Turning to her, "that's restock sorted for next week." He didn't mention her earlier meltdown and he held no sympathy in his gaze. She appreciated that about him. "There's apparently some farm land not too far east of here so I need to go deal with some warding. I need you to go to the Alpha's tent and hand him this." He gave her a large, rolled up piece of parchment that she recognised to be the enchanted map. "Tell him I'm taking care of the wards so he might as well have a look before I'm back."

She nodded silently and he set off towards the muggle farm.

Looking down at the map in her hands and then up to the largest tent in the camp, she swallowed. She hated all time spent in Greyback's company. His presence alone made her skin crawl. _That's what evil feels like,_ she thought.

She wrapped on the wooden post of the tent and waited for the grunted 'come in'. When she lifted the flap and entered, she was met with the ungodly sight of Greyback's naked body rutting a sprawled out Aanka beneath him on the bed. Like actual dogs, he had her by the hips as he continuously pumped an obscenely large cock in and out of her cunt.

Hermione screamed and turned around to leave when Greyback's rough grunt stopped her. "I told you to come in." He said, between rough jerks of his cock into his wife. To Hermione's somewhat surprise, Aanka was not that embarrassed or showing any signs of real pain. Though she didn't look Hermione in the eye, she let out soft moans at each forceful thrust into her body. If this was any other couple, Hermione would have considered this extremely erotic.

"I—uh. Map."

Greyback looked over at her, his eyes almost completely black. His fangs were long enough that he couldn't quite seem to close his mouth around them and his body was covered in a dusting of furry hair. His claws were elongated and pressed into the supple plumpness of Aanka's arse cheeks, and even his ears were elongated into sharp points. Whilst he remained largely human, it was clear to Hermione that he had shifted into some semi-wolf state. The pure danger in the air was palpable.

His gaze remained on her until Aanka let out a particularly pleasured moan. He held her hips tighter and pumped his cock faster, rutting her like a dog. After what seemed like an age of Hermione trying to look anywhere else, Greyback slammed his cock deep into his wife's cunt, and growled as he spent himself inside of her. As he did so, he reached a hand down to her swollen pregnant belly hanging beneath him and stroked it gently.

Before he could even pull out, Hermione heard Anders' voice ring out as he entered. "Alpha, the farm has already been war—oh." Hermione's relief was evident as she pushed the map into his hands and left the tent, her cheeks a bright scarlet.

Anders watched her go before turning back to see Greyback pulling his engorged dick from Aanka. He chuckled softly, "you didn't have to make her watch, Alpha."

"She's my bitch, I can fuck her in front of whoever I like." He growled out as he gave Aanka's rump a good slap. "Besides, they all like a show." He gave a low chuckle.

Greyback stood, drew the curtain over his bed and approached Anders. He took the map from him and laying it flat out on a table in the centre of the larger room of the tent. "I dealt with the muggle farm whilst I was there." His voice was all but a growl and his chest still heaved from the good rutting. "I'm glad you brought this though." He said, gesturing to the parchment. He picked a stray quill from the table and marked an 'x' on the page, just north-east of their own location. As he did so, the annotations that Anders has made earlier changed to accommodate this new data.

Anders looked confusedly at his Alpha.

"We didn't stop at the muggle farm." Greyback explained. "Just further north than that is fresh, running water. The estuary opens out into a small lake. It didn't take long there to pick up a scent."

Anders raised a hopeful eyebrow. "Was there a magical footprint?"

Greyback nodded. "Not enough to run an identity check with the Ministry but it was fresh." His face broke out into an repulsively sadistic smile. "We're close."


	7. Unforgiving

"What the fuck?"

Anders had to laugh at the look on the poor witch's face.

Hermione looked at him with confusion and disgust written into her features. "Seriously. Why the fuck did he do that? I did not want to see that."

Anders' gentle laughter didn't cease. "Fenrir Greyback is a proud, unabashed man. Somewhat territorial too. I thought you would have figured that out by now." He picked a piece of bread from his plate, soaking it thoroughly in his broth before popping it into his mouth to munch on. When she remained silent, he shovelled a few more spoonfuls of savoury chicken broth down his throat. "C'mon Granger, you're a big girl. I'm sure it wasn't terrible."

"It looked like it hurt." She grimaced as she helped herself to her own bowl of broth, sitting beside him in the dirt. Her lip curled over her teeth in disgust as she stared distantly at a truly unforgiving mental image.

Anders shrugged, not seeming to care. "She needed a good rutting if her backchat earlier is anything to go by. The bitch was out of line." He thought for a moment, "she knows better."

Hermione ignored the attitude; it was not worth the hassle to challenge. Instead she concentrated on getting the last of her broth down her.

The sun had set entirely now. The fire illuminated their cosy little camp but only just. With the trees littered between their tents and it being the height of summer, the canopy above them was full. The moon's light did not penetrate their cosy space and so much of it was cast into darkness. Without the illumination of the moon, Hermione somehow felt colder. She bundled herself into her fleece, hiding her hands in the sleeves, and tried to forget the horrible sounds Greyback had made as he climaxed.

"You have some kind of magical tether on me." She said to him.

He tipped his bowl towards his mouth and drank the rest of the broth down. "Astute," was his only acknowledgment that she was right.

She nodded. "So, for curiosities sake," she said around a piece of broth-sodden bread, "why can't I go to the muggle village with Tye tomorrow?"

He looked down at her with suspicion. "What makes you so eager for Tye's company?"

"Not a lot," she muttered, eyeing the immature young man a few yards away. He was picking at something under his nail and then showing it to a young blonde man next to him. She shook her head. "But seeing civilisation sounds nice. It's not like I'd run."

Anders just rolled his eyes. "I told you no."

Before the conversation could go any further, Greyback joined them in his camp chair with a bowl of his own broth, bread soaking inside. He pulled a quiet Aanka into his lap and started to feed her between bites of his own. When Hermione chanced a glance at the other woman, there was no embarrassment. She just seemed tired and hungry. Hermione continued eating.

With the cosier feel to the camp, the men seemed to chat more as a group. Both Greyback and Anders seemed in high spirits, exchanging conversation with some of the other members. The atmosphere of the camp was lighter than usual, bodies drawn closer to the warmth of the fire. As she took a long draught of the water in Anders' metal flask, she listened to the men chatter about Quidditch. The normalcy of it surprised and comforted her. It seemed Greyback didn't support any particular team but was happy to chat about the sport.

Tye and his blonde friend – a tanned man with tattoos named Justin Angelblossom, dubbed Angel for short – claimed that the Tutshill Tornadoes were the best team and were sure to win this season.

Anders revealed himself to be a fan then with a scoff. "That's actually laughable, kids. They are down three matches from the Falcons."

This was nice, she thought. The boyish banter reminded her of her friends. She missed Harry and Ron so much. This was the first full thought she had cast towards them in over a month. Since their deaths, the thought of them had been too painful to bear for more than mere moments. This is the first time she truly felt like remembering them. "How are the Chudley Cannons doing?" She asked Angel.

The man huffed a laugh. "Quite terribly." He is voice was haughty and Southern, but his laugh was genuine.

Hermione gave a real smile at the thought of Ron's terrible team continuing to be terrible despite all that had happened. It was somehow comforting, familiar.

Anders looked down at her with a raised brow, "I didn't take you for a Quidditch fan, Granger."

"I didn't take her to be so _outspoken_." Tye said sarcastically.

She felt the eyes of all the men on her then. Hermione realised this was the first time she had spoken so publicly in front of them all. "Well, I— I guess not many of you have been exciting enough conversation."

They chuckled and she let the breath she was holding escape her. "Cheeky. I like it." Tye winked at her playfully.

As the evening ticked into darkness, the fire was stoked and their conversations moved to the Ministry of Magic and then to war and then to the first war. It seemed that, like Hermione, some of the men hadn't been around for that one. Tye and Angel, who were both in their early 20s were too young to really remember the first war. It transpired too that some of the men, including Cutters – the greasy blonde man – had not yet been bitten at that point. These people instead listened and asked questions about the first war. Fenrir and Anders seemed to thoroughly enjoy the reminiscing.

"You wouldn't believe the havoc we reeked." Anders said, smiling wistfully. "You have to understand, the second war was just fresh blood on old feuds. By then, they knew what was coming and much of what we did had to stay underground because of that." He took a sip of a bottle of Ogden's that had been going around. "But the first war, we were still unknown to the world, had the element of surprise. They didn't stand a chance." A smiled wicked up his face, one that Hermione had only seen when he had shoved his cock into her mouth and once before when he had bent her over that log.

Tanaka nodded, "I miss the biting. Turning was more fun than just eating." He noted.

Greyback grumbled, a tendril of smoke from his joint blowing out through his nostrils along with the deep-chested growl. "The biting." He took another drag. "I brought so many beautiful little werewolves into the world in that war."

"Did you ever keep count?" Tye asked, his voice uncharacteristically quiet as the beast before him lost his focus on his memories of violence.

Greyback exhaled on the drag, passing the joint to Tye, who was looking very pleased with himself. He shook his head. "I can only assume the Department of Magical Law Enforcement has an estimate. They were _infatuated_ with me." He licked his teeth.

A moment of silence descended. Anders drank up the last of his firewhiskey and stood, "Takin' a leak." He muttered and left the circle for the dark cover of the trees.

Hermione felt marginally more exposed and unsafe without him there, which annoyed her to no end. She watched Tye take a drag, splutter a cough, and pass it onto Angel. The joint was passed around the circle until it reached her. She took it between two fingers and gingerly passed it back to Greyback. She was grateful when he took it wordlessly without insisting she take a drag herself. However, Greyback did continue to watch her, not with any sort of hunger as he had before. It was not rage, nor sadism. His features were mild: a mixture between wariness and curiosity belayed his face. As mild as a face like _that_ could get. Greyback had a monstrous face; features too sharp to be all-the-way human. Unlike the other men here, his face was a terrifying fusion between man and beast, his ears too pointed, his brow too heavy and his yellowed fangs too long. It was as if one too many shifts had permanently altered him. It was apt and it left the air around him hesitant to tread. In the light of the fire, she could see a cloudiness that swam in his one scarred eye. _Was he blind?_ No, both his eyes certainly focused on her now.

She chanced a look down at the woman now sleeping in his lap, but his hand came up to shield her from Hermione's view. She inwardly rolled her eyes at that. The fire crackled gently between them. She didn't look to accompany that sound with any conversation.

Before long, Anders was back. "Come on, Granger. Bedtime."

She nodded and got up, eager to get some deserved sleep.

When he followed her into the tent, he pulled the tent flaps closed behind them and then the curtains that separated where they slept from the rest of their tent. He started undressing as did she, taking her boots off and her waterproof. Before she could climb into the furs at the foot of his bed, he spoke. "Take your trousers off."

Hermione spun around. Her blood went cold. "What?"

"Take them off." He removed his outer cloak and then stepped towards her, pulling her close to him. When she grunted and tried to pull away, he tightened his arm around her arm and pulled her trousers down her legs.

Pasnic seeped down her limbs from her chest and he tried to wriggle free but before long, he had pulled her legs free of the trousers and flipped her over so that her belly was flat against the bed in front of him. "No!" She screamed, trying to scramble across the bed. He caught her ankle and yanked her back. She heard the unbuckle of his belt and before long he was spreading her arse and pushing a thick cock into her.

It all happened so fast. She wasn't even clean. She wasn't even attractive. She had done nothing wrong to him. She _hated_ him. The pain of his member stretching her open once again rippled up her centre. Oh, she _hated_ him. She still struggled underneath him but before long he was pumping his long cock in and out of her. He gave a sigh of relief as he felt her walls grip him.

"You're a sick fuck." She muttered through her tears between grunts, jolting forward on the bed with his every thrust. She tried to reach back to hit him, but he caught her wrist and held it behind her back with ease. He had the nerve to laugh at her, amused. "You deserve hell," she ground out over the lump in her throat.

Unlike the first few times however, she wasn't scared. Her only feeling was a wet and putrid anger. Hatred. She slowly tried to inch her free arm backwards on the bed, closer and closer to where he his cock met her entrance with persistent force. Her fingers felt the thatch of hair at his thigh. She gripped them with her fingertips and pulled.

He let out a growled shout and pulled himself free of her cunt in pain. "You little whore!" Grabbing her shoulder, he whipped her around so that her back lay against the quilts. With his claws digging into her arm and thigh for grip, he yanked her upwards, lifting and slamming her against the tent post, shoving his cock into her once again. Her lips met the thick thatch of black curls at his crotch as he buried himself to the hilt inside her warm centre. His pumping had slickened her insides up, both of their fluids lessening the friction inside her.

He was smiling lasciviously at her now, looking deep into her eyes. His black hair lay dishevelled over his face, resembling a wild animal.

She stared at him with hatred and when she tried to beat her fists against his broad chest, he simply growled, and jack hammered his cock into her even faster. The head was hitting the neck of her womb repeatedly. It felt unbelievably deep and each thrust elicited a small grunt from her. This was a new feeling, starting in the pit of her navel. She leaned her head back against the wooden tent pole and tried to ride the feeling out, but it only grew.

He latched onto her throat and she was vaguely aware that she should not allow that. He was a werewolf. Surely that was dangerous. But as he bounced her on his cock, she was only truly conscious of the fluttering sensation her centre was giving her.

Anders was aware of it too and he growled his approval into her throat. His tongue felt so erotic lathing her neck and collarbone like that, dragging his canines against the dip of her shoulder. She hummed. This felt so good. She hated him but the way he fucked her now was like nothing else. She curled her lip and pulled his hair, yanking him off her throat.

He growled his pain once again and in one swift movement he threw her onto the bed. Frenzied, he climbed on top of her. His energy was raw and animalistic. It wasn't long before he had her impaled on his cock once again. "Stupid, little wench." He growled into her ear. His voice was gravellier than before. Whilst far more human, he reminded her of Greyback. The image of Greyback fucking his heavily pregnant wife swam into her mind only when it came into focus, it wasn't them. It was her beneath Anders, spread like his bitch.

He growled lewd words into her ear as he fucked his cock into her cunt, driving home into her cervix every. Single. Time. "You're a filthy prick." She groaned and panted. "Sick fuck."

He slapped a hand over her mouth to gag her. "Silly witch." He rasped around his growling. "Take it. Take it like a good girl."

It was all too much. The thick cock hammering away at her pussy no longer hurt but burned with delicious intensity. His crass language, his hand covering her mouth. The panting and the fucking. He was so large, so fierce. He was so _man._ Her pleasure snapped, sparking in her clit and, with a loud moan, Hermione was fucked through her first orgasm with a man.

The tightening of her pussy milked Anders and squeezed him for what he had as he spent himself inside of her. Smaller erratic jerks of his hips signalled the hot spurts of his cum coming to an end. His muscles relaxed and he rested more of his weight on top of her. As she lay underneath him, squished by the werewolf, softening dick still tucked into her cunt, all she could think was _what the fuck?_

Only a few more moments passed before he pulled himself from her hole. He stood and watched the cum start to ooze slowly to the front of her pussy.

He smacked her arse lightly and zipped himself back into his trousers.

She watched him leave the sleeping area and return a moment later with a book. She sat herself up, unsure of what to do with herself. She couldn't pretend she liked him, but she also couldn't pretend she didn't thoroughly enjoy that. She just needed the release, she told herself. She couldn't curse him. It felt wrong to be mad at him. But she was, she still hated him in fact. The warring in her head crystallised into one clear truth, she now understood the concept of a 'hate fuck'.

When he climbed beneath the covers into his bed, she decided she didn't need that sort of intimacy. She got up to move toward her furs on the floor.

"Where do you think you're going?" He didn't look up from the book in his hands.

She turned back to look at him. Neither of them moved. Her mind, too tired to think of what she should do, was blank. Instead her heart, filled only with what she wanted to do, willed that she climb into the bed with him. So she did, feeling awkward. Slowly and ever-so-uncertainly, she lay her head into his lap. She could smell his sweat, the fresh and the stale body odour from a lack of showering. She smelt her fluids on the warmth of his crotch beneath her head. It repulsed her but she was comfy. The bed was comfy. His thighs. It didn't take long for her to close her eyes, the confusion and tension of the day melting away in her post-orgasmic haze.

She felt a large hand petting her hair just as she tipped the precipice into slumber.

* * *

That same _what the fuck_ feeling stayed with Hermione when she woke up. She sat up in Anders' bed, blinking blearily around at the tent. He was gone but she heard some noise in the camp outside.

When she stood, Hermione felt the absence of Anders' dick. It felt as if she was gaping open, though she had a hard time believing that.

Fully dressed, she found Anders in the camp, listening to Greyback instruct a group of men. She didn't want to walk over and interrupt. She was somewhat embarrassed about last night, not as much as she felt she should be but enough for her to want some time for herself. She picked a plate from the pile in the centre, helping herself to some cooked off eggs and sausages before sitting down at the opening of her tent to eat. She enjoyed her food in the crisp summer morning, watching birds flutter about in the trees above. She never took a meal for granted anymore.

The group of men finally broke off and she eyed Anders heading back towards her. She used all she had left of her Gryffindor spine, to remain eye contact with him as he approached.

"We're heading out today. Camp stays put and so do you." He said, slipping back into the tent behind her.

Hermione spun on her bum in the dirt, "We're staying here today?" She spoke into the tent after him.

" _You're_ staying here." He corrected from within the tent. He slipped back out with some supplies, shrinking them to fit in his inner coat pockets. "And don't think about running again. We'll know exactly where you are, and we'll hunt you down just as quickly as last time."

She bit off the end of a sausage with a mild glare at him. He didn't seem to notice. "Where are you going?"

"None of your business."

"So, I'm just staying here on my own?" She almost felt hopeful.

He gave a huffed laugh. "No. Some men will be around."

"So what am I supposed to do while you're gone?"

He rolled his eyes at her questioning. "Perhaps it's time for you to actually start reading the books I'm sharing with you, hm?"

She took another bite of sausage bitterly. "Are you just going to pretend last night didn't happen?" She asked more quietly, out of earshot to the others.

He stopped packing his coat with supplies then and looked at her. "I have no shame about last night, Granger. I was horny. I fucked you. Is there much else to say?"

She scoffed at him. "It wouldn't hurt for you to have some shame."

"Oh Merlin," he rolled his eyes. "You need to stop pretending this is your normal human life, Hermione." The use of her given name shook her more than she thought it could. "I don't care if sex is supposed to be embarrassing for you. Hell, I'd happily fuck you in the middle of the camp next time, let the whole forest watch."

"I'm not an idiot." She said, her tone still bitter. She fought to keep her voice hushed with the other men pottering about around them. "I'm not looking for sympathy from my rapist." She spat.

He looked at her then, his dark, brown eyes narrowing at her under his brow. That was the first time she had used that word to him. It wasn't inaccurate, he was her rapist. But that didn't mean he would care. He huffed. "Okay then."

Before Hermione could argue anymore at the triviality with which he regarded her pain and suffering, he walked away and disappeared inside Greyback's tent. She ate the rest of her eggs and sausages in her silent frustration, staring unseeingly into last night's extinguished firepit. Once again alone with her thoughts, Hermione's anger simmered lightly, not near enough to the surface to show but certainly enough to ignite her Gryffindor fire. For the sake of all that she had gone through, all the loved ones she had left behind, Hermione was angry and resolute that anger _was_ the answer. Her anger had carried her through every injustice done to her and her loved ones before. This enslavement would be no different.

When she had finished her food, she volunteered herself to help with the washing up. It was something she could do without any need to interact with Anders or Greyback or that bitch, Aanka. Instead she made very light conversation with Tye and Angel, whom she learned would also be leaving the camp today. It was just Tanaka and two other men she hadn't bothered to meet that would be staying. She knew them both by face though, she had tasted their cocks on that first night in camp.

When she finished, Hermione wandered inside her tent, taking off the boots that were too small for her. She looked down at the pile of schoolbooks that Anders had returned to the box. Kneeling next to them, she looked at their spines carefully and stroked the embossed titles. The pain they gave her still ached in her throat. She couldn't bring herself to pick them up, feel their weight. They were still much too heavy.

Instead, her fingers picked up Anders' dog-eaten recommendation, _Shadows and Spirits._ The book was weighty and used. Her fingertips skimmed the worn canvassed book face, plain black with simple lettering. Book in hand, she pulled her furs closer to one of the tent poles, sat back against it and opened the book.

" _Shadows and Spirits_

_Foreword:_

_The content of this book is mere speculation. What we know on the subject of forest spirits is no more than legend. Investigative research ALWAYS leads to death or disappearance. 13 brave researchers have lost their lives to bring us no more than 3 pages of this book. The rest has been made up of stories and folklore from across Ireland. It is not worth looking for these spirits. Please do not go into their forests._

_They do not want to be found and you do not want to find them."_

Hermione paused briefly to search the book for the author's name. Before she could find it however, she was interrupted by Anders returning to the tent, collecting some things from the boxes nearest to the table and pushing some papers into his inner jacket pockets. "Tanaka, Mullins and Rostad will be in the camp today taking care of some things. If you need anything go to them, and if they need anything, you do it."

She remained in her seat on the furs. "So to be clear, I have no obligations to do anything today."

He stood and looked down at her from across the tent. "You have the obligation of doing whatever they require of you as you work for us. You will not show me up, Granger."

His admonishment made it out like she was his; her actions were a reflection on him. Were they? He didn't own her. He just happened to have space for her in his tent. It was clear he had no intent on treating her like a human, like she was worth giving privacy or respect to. She was no better off living in his tent than in any other tent in the camp. Why did it matter to him what she did?

She turned back to her book without a response. "When will you be back?" She asked, pretending to read the words in front of her, feigning disinterest.

He pushed his shrunken rucksack into his pocket and lowered his brow at her. "Later." He turned and headed for the tent flap. "Be good."

She was alone in the tent again, at peace.

" _Chapter 1:"_ She read. _"The Faerie Revolt."_

* * *

It only took Hermione an hour to finish the first three heavy chapters of the book, by which time she had learnt that Ireland likely housed some of the most dangerous and misunderstood magical creatures she had ever learned about.

Whilst she wasn't aware of how much time had passed, as she was without a clock, she was sure it would be a good time to check in with Tanaka, even if for nothing other than to be given some chores to busy herself with.

Leaving the tent, Hermione was greeted with a crisper summer breeze than previous days. The cosy tree canopy above her shed a very faint green glow to the air beneath, though that could have been her imagination. The sun shone down through the gaps regardless, uncaring of her mood.

She approached Tanaka as he sat outside his tent scrawling across some parchment with a quill in hand. He was a mild-mannered, middle-aged Asian man. He had a hard stare and he garnered respect. Hermione knew little else about him. "Is there anything you need doing?"

He shook his head without looking up from his parchment.

Hermione looked around the, mostly empty, camp. "Are you sure? I can help."

He sighed and looked up at her. "I'm busy, Witch." He uttered the word with some derision. "Unless you want to write these Snatcher reports yourself…" He left his sentence trailing and turned back to his work.

Hermione just nodded and tried to think of something else she could do to pass the time. Her eyes flicked to movement from the largest tent in the camp. Aanka Greyback breezed out of the tent flap and, without looking around, she headed for the trees with a satchel under her arm.

Hermione furrowed her brow. She couldn't imagine Greyback leaving without his prized possession. Glancing around the camp, none of the men seemed to have noticed the other woman leaving. Resolute, Hermione followed her.

She tiptoed, backing away from the camp and when no one objected to her leaving, she, too, headed for the trees.

The forest was thick ahead, darker than she had thought it would be on a summer's day. She stayed several metres behind the woman in front of her, trying not to lose sight of her between the trees. Where was she going? Was she even allowed to leave? Whilst it did not seem likely that Mrs. Greyback could be escaping her husband and his men, Hermione could not rule it out. Every ten paces, Hermione looked back over her shoulder, trying to remember the way she had come so she didn't find herself lost or, worse, accused of escaping.

The deeper she followed the other woman into the forest, the more annoyed Hermione became. Why was she just wandering away? Was she living a secret life? Was she truly allowed to enjoy freedoms that Hermione could not? Well, that woman was clearly stupid. If she thought of herself as above Hermione, then she must be blind to the fact that she was no more of a commodity herself. She was not respected by the other men in their camp. She was owned. And yet she stood by and let it all happen to Hermione too. What was worse, she looked down at Hermione for the way she was treated by them. She was as wicked as the rest of them. _Or too much of a coward to want better,_ Hermione thought to herself with bitterness.

Her thoughts were broken by the thump of a satchel hitting the forest floor. Hermione's vision focused ahead of her at Aanka Greyback staring straight at her, hand on hip and one brow arched dismissively. "You are loud. It makes you bad at following people."

Hermione would have scoffed if she hadn't been so jolted from her thoughts. "I... Well—"

Aanka rolled her eyes. "Why are you following me?"

"Where are you going?" Hermione asked, feeling smaller than she had just moments before in her own head.

"That was not an answer." When Hermione continued to stare at her dumbfounded, Aanka sighed. "You stomp when you walk. You breathe heavily. If you are going to follow me, do it quietly." The woman lifted her bag over her shoulder again and continued into the forest.

Routed to her spot, Hermione blinked for a few moments before rushing to catch up to the woman ahead. "Are you escaping?" She asked more tentatively than she had meant to.

The woman laughed genuinely then; the type of drawly laugh that made Hermione think she might have once been a woman of higher class. "Escaping what exactly? I'm afraid the world isn't that much nicer outside our ragtag little bunch."

"That's a sad way to look at things." Hermione commented.

The woman side-eyed Hermione. "I'm fine with my lot, thank you." Her tone was low and hinted with warning.

Hermione didn't look to upset her. Despite herself, and her distain towards the woman just moments ago, the interaction she was having with another woman filled Hermione with a rush of excitement. It was a real conversation, with a real woman. She did not realise this was something she could miss so much, and she wanted to hold onto it. What did it matter that the woman could have been evil? Hermione could not bring herself to fear Aanka as much as she did Greyback or the others, at least not in the same way.

A few more moments passed as they walked before Hermione spoke again, "where are you going?" She asked once more.

"Going to find some peace… and _quiet_." Aanka added, tossing stray curl out of her face.

Her hint for Hermione to stop talking went unnoticed. "Do they leave you alone in the camp a lot? Do they go for very long?"

Aanka sighed, "no, I can't say it's a regular occurrence."

Hermione nodded in thought. "Perhaps they're close to whoever they're looking for? Or maybe they like the new campsite." She offered.

"Perhaps." Aanka replied, not really caring. "Just be thankful for the break, Granger."

Hermione could only agree with that. "Right." She opened her mouth to ask another question but Aanka interrupted her.

"How long has it been since you last bathed?"

Hermione's brow furrowed in her confusion. "Well…" She thought about it in earnest. A simple _scourgify_ sufficed every so often whilst she was on the run with Ron and Harry, but it never made her feel clean. A real, honest wash? Hermione had not felt that in months. The thought disgusted her. "There are certain sacrifices you have to make when you are on the run."

Aanka simply nodded. "Don't I know that. When I started out this nomadic life, I was disgusting. Sweaty, greasy." she chuckled. "You learn to use the elements somewhat. Your body learns too."

Hermione could only agree. Her once kinky, coily hair was knotted and matted at the nape of her neck. Blood and grime crusted her scalp and skin, her fingernails were black with dirt. Then her mind turned to Aanka's words. "How _did_ you start out here?"

It was clear Aanka knew what she meant by that. Surely this was not the life she sought after. How could it be? Aanka did not respond for a few moments and Hermione was beginning to think she had struck a nerve. "Life is just a series of decisions you have to make." Before Hermione could pry any further, Aanka dipped between two trees, "you can thank me later."

When Hermione followed her, her eyes were assaulted with a bright summer sun bursting into the open space before her. She waded through hip-high grassy foliage and blinked her tender eyes through the bright light of day, only now realising how dark the forest was under the canopy of the trees. When her legs left the weight of heavy flora, and her eyes adjusted, Hermione took in her surroundings.

A wall of mossed-over rock surrounded this alcove in the forest, creating a basin of soft babbling water spilling from the waterfall upstream. The waterfall itself was not small but seemed climbable, rushing frothy white horses into the widening stream below where the water slowed and soothed under the bright summer sun. Following its path downstream, Hermione saw it narrowing back in to form the estuary. This space of tranquillity was finite but glorious. She watched Aanka head toward the edge of the water, where the grass thinned out into wet rock.

"This is where you went yesterday?" Hermione asked, scanning the water with her eyes, amazed at its glittering clarity.

Aanka nodded and lowered herself to the floor. "Some amazing things you find when you're not looking for fugitives." Stretching around her protruding belly, Aanka removed her walking boots and socks, wiggling her free toes in the breeze.

Itching to feel the air between her toes too, Hermione did the same, joining the other woman at the bank. She peeled off her socks and rubbed the knots in the soles of her feet. They sat in silence for a moment, Aanka's closed eyes turned up to the burning sky, Hermione's dirty feet rubbing the wet rock beneath her, enjoying the chilled grating against her hardened skin.

The silence did not last longer than a few minutes, however. Aanka struggled to her feet to remove her fleece and pull her sports bra over her breasts and shoulders. Only when Hermione realised she was looking up at a woman naked from the chest up, did she look away with a blush. "What are you doing?" For a terrifying moment before Aanka Greyback answered her, Hermione was certain that this woman truly was no different from the men they lived with. The thought of being forced to pleasure yet another stranger made Hermione's stomach lurch.

"Bath." Aanka replied flatly, unbuttoning her shorts, and pulling them down her legs. She stepped out of her underwear and flicked them off her toes into the pile of clothes now laying on the bank. With hesitancy, she dipped her toes into the crisp water.

Hermione watched the woman enter the water slowly on her exhale, trying desperately not to pay attention that she could very much see this stranger's bare arse.

Aanka submerged herself to her breasts and chuffed out the bracing cold of the water. "Nudity is a very healthy thing to get used to, Granger." She gave an eye roll, as if she had read Hermione's thoughts across her face and found them to be childish.

"I can see you people think that." Hermione replied. Her aversion was not to nudity, she told herself. It was disgust at using nakedness and sex for psychological domination. Hermione was sick of genitals being shoved in her face, of Greyback forcing her to watch him fuck his wife, of being forced to see naked bodies without her consent. She did not care if this how things were done here. It was wrong and she was angry.

By the way Aanka's shoulders stilled in the water, muscles bunching over her back like an animal ready to pounce, it seemed Hermione's anger had not gone unnoticed. "'You people?' Are my people not to your liking, Witch? Do the impenitent offend your delicate sensibilities?" Her tone was cold and hard. She did not turn to look at Hermione.

Hermione scrunched her nose up in annoyance. "I have nothing against werewolves, I have met plenty of kind and compassionate werewolves." Plenty was perhaps a bit of an overstatement but Mrs. Greyback didn't exactly need to know that. "I simply don't buy the condition as an excuse for violence."

Aanka Greyback did turn to look at her then, but not with anger or malice. Her curly brown locks flicked over her shoulder, revealing only incredulity in the woman's eyes. "If you are referring to Lupin, then yes I'd be willing to bet that _my people_ may come as a bit of a shock to you." She spoke slowly as if this would be difficult to understand. It was not the first time Hermione had dealt with condescension. "Lupin was one man. He is not a spokesperson for werewolves. He lived with humans. You expect him to walk and talk like anything but a human?"

For a moment Hermione frowned in confusion at Aanka's mention of Lupin but it was quickly washed through with anger, to the point where she forgot entirely that she was talking across a small lake to a woman entirely naked. "Lupin was a good man. Being good and finding love and acceptance and a family didn't make him any weaker." She snarled through her bitterness before muttering to herself, "Lupin was ten times the man Greyback is."

"See that's the mistake you keep making here." Aanka splashed some water over her hair more forcefully than she needed to. "Greyback _isn't_ a man. Neither is Anders, nor the rest of them. Use your brain, Granger, they are inhuman. Werewolves." She enunciated the last word carefully to make her point explicit. "You may not like it but that part of himself that Lupin rejected was a killer just like Greyback; coded into his very magic, and it would have bitten and eaten you too if it had gotten the chance." She huffed angrily and massaged her hair absent-mindedly. "Lupin wasn't successful as a man. He played the part and look where it got him." She said bitterly. "The day you wake up and realise that you can't hold these werewolves to the same standard is the day your life will start to get easier. As for Greyback, whatever vestige that remains human is more monstrous than the wolf and that is no fault of the _condition_." She mimicked Hermione's tone.

Hermione's indignation at being mimicked was burned almost as hot as her disbelief of Aanka Greyback's dismissal of her rape and abuse. "They have the rights of men and with that come the responsi—"

"They do _not._ " Aanka's voice had risen well above the rushing of the waterfall. "They're not _men_. They have never had the _privilege._ The Ministry that treats you so kindly leashed my people like dogs, and you condemn them for snapping at the bones your people dangle above them." She turned slowly to stare Hermione down, her slight frame disturbing the water to the banks. Hermione was unnerved by the hard and unwavering resolve she found in the other woman's eyes; it reminded her of Professor McGonagall's boldness only it held none of the warmth. "We are not worse than humans just because we commit our crimes openly."

Despite her best efforts, Hermione's voice faltered when she spoke. "Gre—Greyback's a cannibal—"

"And a war criminal. So, stop expecting him and his men to treat you with respect. You are a slave, Granger."

Hermione's chin wobbled with a putrid, wet fury and tears threatened to burst the carefully kept banks of her eyes. "So that's it? Just roll over and accept this like a good little slave?" How dare this woman suggest to her to be quiet? How dare this situation impose itself on Hermione and then ridicule her for her anger? "I don't want to be like you, playing house-wife to a war criminal." Tears spilled onto her cheeks. "I don't want to act like any of this is okay and I cannot believe for a moment that you truly think what I'm going through is justifiable. I'm not going to take life advice from someone who has clearly given up just because it is easier to pretend that there's nothing fucked up about bringing a child into the home of a murderer."

Hermione was aware that she had gone too far when Aanka Greyback growled in warning. She inwardly flinched when she realised the gravity of what she had accused and though she wasn't incorrect, she expected an attack nonetheless.

Aanka didn't move from her position in the water, staring dangerously, hauntingly into Hermione for what felt like an age before she finally spoke. "You need to grow up and realise this is not the world you left behind." Her voice was quiet and steady, Hermione almost had to strain to hear her over the running water. "You have had to say goodbye to a lot of freedoms. It was not fair, and it was not easy. It was not right. But you are an adult now, Hermione. I cannot waste my time pitying an adult woman crying about the past and neither will anyone back at that camp. They have seen it all before. They do not care." Her voice was weighted with what Hermione might have mistaken for remorse if she hadn't realised it was more a hard-learned wisdom. "You will only make it through this if you grow up and realise that you are lucky. You made it this far, despite everything. You were lucky enough to see your lot killed before you could learn that they were no better."

Aanka huffed a sigh, cupped some water in her hands and started wetting the ends of her hair. "You were coddled, and you miss your make-believe world where things felt right, where there was a side that existed that was good. You were groomed, Hermione, a child soldier drafted into a war that was never yours to fight. But you are not a child anymore." Her voice stayed level, devoid of emotion. "You are a grown up and there comes a time when grown ups have to realise that life is mean and hard and being angry about that doesn't fix it. You must learn to adapt, to survive, and some day when you get really good at it like I have, you'll understand that it doesn't make you a bad person to want more than just surviving."

Aanka finally looked away from Hermione and stared at the water around her, as if she only just realised she was naked in a lake.

Hermione stayed silent, dumbfounded as Aanka waded back to the bank to retrieve soaps from her bag. Hermione wasn't sure what to think. There was a history to Aanka's words, lessons learned.

A lot of truths had just assaulted Hermione and being forced to confront all of that somehow made her feel liberated, even if she was not entirely sure what those truths were. She was at least certain she did not want to unpack all that right away.

She wiped the fatigue from her eyes, trying her hardest to rub her aching mind through her eyeballs. When that failed – and she blinked the dizzying colours out of her vision – Hermione found Aanka had moved to the other side of the lake, nearer to the waterfall.

Backed by a wall of wet, mossy rock, Aanka was incredibly picturesque. The water she stood in now was shallower, revealing more of her frame. Her thick, tanned legs held strength beyond the woman's short stature. Her hips were laden with a motherly helping of fat, striped with pinkish grey stretch marks that glistened in the sun. _Fresh_ , Hermione thought. The pregnant swell of her belly was also bracketed with stretch marks. She was visibly nearing her due date, judging by the size of the bump. The thought only saddened Hermione. Aanka Greyback's breasts were also large and round with dark brown nipples and a scattering of what looked like love bites. Hermione cast a brief thought back to Ron, a distant memory of a private moment between the two of them, before her attention was caught by scars on the pregnant woman's neck and back, now being scrubbed with soap.

Despite all of that, Aanka's face was the most remarkable. Hard, sharp eyes like Bellatrix Lestrange's, a rusty looking tan on her forehead and a muscular jaw. This woman swathed in soft features had hardened herself. It didn't make her any prettier or uglier, just hardened. _She is beautiful though,_ Hermione had to admit.

Hermione sighed herself out of her own thoughts; they were not always the best company. She unzipped her fleece and took off her t-shirt before pulling her shorts and socks from the ends of her feet.

Naked as the day she was born, Hermione tested the frigid water with her toes. Pushing past the shock, she made her way to the waterfall on the other side of the lake. "Can I borrow some soap, please?"

Despite the crashing of the water beside them, Aanka heard her, nodded and handed her the parchment-wrapped bar.

They spent the rest of the daylight in the water together, scrubbing and detangling themselves from all the filth they had accumulated since their last baths. Hermione made some small conversation and was presently surprised when Aanka reciprocated. As the sun fell into the cushion of the horizon, and they started on their way back to camp, Hermione felt unrecognisable: clean on a level she never knew she could appreciate, and _oh_ did she make sure to appreciate it.

She felt the cool evening air lick the back of her wet neck, each breath she took in so much lighter than she had felt in months. It took her several more paces than it did Aanka to notice the raucous sounds of celebration in the trees ahead of them, and the women shared a look of suspicion between them.

When they finally made it to the torchlight of the camp, Hermione saw the cause of it.

Greyback, in the monstrous horror that he was, towered above a black man kneeling before him. "Aanka, my love." Hermione had never heard such an enamoured tone in Greyback, and she unconsciously took a step back from the men crowding in the centre of the camp as Aanka approached her husband. "Look at the little prize I've brought you." He pulled her to him tightly by the waist.

Hermione watched Aanka's remorseless gaze at the young man kneeling before her, apathetic as Greyback took a step forward to slap his meaty paw across the poor man's face. She flinched at the sound and rubbed the phantom pains in her own cheek. The realisation then dawned on Hermione, that Greyback and Anders had been successful in their capture of resistance members and she circled the camp to get a better look at the man.

As she did, she noticed a bound young woman in the grips of Cutters, bleeding and crying as he and another werewolf molested her through her clothes. She steeled herself to look away only to lock eyes with Anders across the frenzied camp. He had his hands wrapped around a chain that bound the beaten and unbroken Kingsley Shacklebolt. Hermione's mouth hung open and she shared a brief look with Kingsley before Greyback kicked him in the stomach with the strength of a gargantuan werewolf.


	8. Blow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Deepest apologies for the many months it took me to finish this chapter off, especially after saying that I had more time to write. Pandemic and all aside, 2020 has made it a personal mission to humble me very deeply and I have been dealt a number of very personal blows in these last few months. I am still grieving but I am finally returning to creating/curating things and so far, writing this has been a really helpful way to pass the time. I have a story plan mostly fleshed out for the rest of this, but I'm also really interested in getting your opinions as to where this story should go. I would be ever so grateful for a review, however short.
> 
> Bit of an Anders heavy chapter, so I hope yous all don't mind too much! Also, if any of you have read the Gone series and are interested in some fanfic, then I am the gal to talk to (desperate for someone to fangirl with tbh).
> 
> Stay safe everyone, have a very merry winter break.

Kingsley Shacklebolt took the blow with a grunt, doubling over and spitting the pain from his mouth. He already sported a split forehead, neat red spilling from his hairline.

"No," Hermione whispered in horror.

Greyback released his wife from his side and paced the dirt in front of Kingsley. The tension in his heels was thick like rubber, his muscles bunching waiting for the pounce. Greyback looked like he had snorted an 8ball of coke, though Hermione knew full well it was only violence the man needed to feel so high. She winced.

"You evaded us for too long, Shacklebolt. You must have known how fat your bounty is." Greyback paced past the man bowing and panting in pain and delicately stroked Kingsley's head with his claws. "Did you think you could outrun us?" He barked a sharp laugh.

Shacklebolt licked his bloodied lips and raised his eyes to Greyback and Hermione's broken heart soared for him and his strength. "At least until the boarder." Shacklebolt admitted coolly.

"France, was it? Was that the plan?" Greyback stalked back and forth, never taking his eyes off his prize.

"Please," Shacklebolt panted. "Let the others go. You have me."

Several men - _wolves_ , Hermione thought- laughed before Greyback even responded. He bent down low on his haunches to get face to face with Kingsley. "I wouldn't want to bring you all this way just to miss the party. Stay a while, we'd _love_ the company." His tongue licked a vicious smile across his lips. He stood, he and Anders shared a look Hermione couldn't read, and Greyback sunk a devastating kick into Kingsley's chest once again, knocking the man sideways.

"Bring the others here." Greyback growled into the camp.

Cutters and Tye's silent friend dragged the young woman and another man, thirty-something and shaking with fear, to the centre of the camp as Kingsley wheezed himself back to the present.

Greyback lay his hand on the Back of Aanka's neck tenderly. "What do you think, Mare?" He crooned into her neck lovingly. "Do you like your gifts?"

"Mine?" She side eyed Greyback. "Aren't all rebels to be taken to the Dark Lord?"

At the very mention of Voldemort, the young woman let out a whimper and Kingsley shuddered. The other rebel man flicked his gaze from creature to creature around him, his eyes full of terror.

Greyback chuckled and scratched the dirty beard on his neck. "The Dark Lord will have whatever he wants, and I can assure you he doesn't care what happens to these two." He gestured to the two rebels Hermione didn't recognise.

"Please!" The young woman strained against Cutters wandering hands, her own arms bound behind her with shackles. "Please don't do this. We are good people!" Her desperate gaze pounced on Aanka, imploring her for her sense of humanity, sororité.

Aanka curled her lip in response and stepped back from the woman.

"Stop Joanne—" Kingsley wheezed.

"You have to help us! We did nothing to you!" The woman begged of Aanka. Hermione could only watch in anticipation as Joanne continued.

"Jo, shut up!" Kingsley's warnings went unnoticed.

"You have to help!" The desperation in Joanne's eyes bled across her face, her lip quivering, hands tremoring as she lay her life with trust in Aanka's decision. "You're a mother!" She gestured her bound wrists to Aanka's protruding belly. "Think of your chil—"

Greyback punched her in the jaw. He did not use the full strength of his arm, but Joanne's sweet pleading face whipped around, and she screeched out a sob. He stalked low to the quivering woman on the ground and grabbed her by the neck, pain and fear pinching her eyes together in a wince. He sat on his haunches and pulled her face close to him. "You so much as look in the direction of _my_ child and I will eat the womb right out of you." He threw her to the ground as he stood.

"Ahem". Hermione looked from the woman shuddering on the floor to Anders, standing behind Kingsley. "Alpha. What do you want with the prisoners?" To Hermione's upset - but certainly not her surprise – Anders seemed non-plussed at the violence. She eyed his disdainful look at Joanne.

Greyback shrugged one shoulder. "Stake them by that tree. Chains, magic, whatever." Hermione noted the tree he gestured to was in the direction of where the men had taken to relieving themselves and she felt immediately grateful not to be Joanne.

The men nodded and started on setting up the space for the new prisoners. Greyback didn't move however and bent down on his haunches once more to eye Kingsley. His look was not sadistic, Hermione was entranced at the levelled gaze each man gave to the other. Neither of them looked away and, how Hermione could not say, but was that respect she saw in each of them? A strange sort of respect perhaps but something not too dissimilar. She watched them exchange this look for an age, time under tension between them.

"You're mine now, Shacklebolt." His expression lay clear, the intent behind his words explicit in the weight of his brow and the slight curl of his top lip.

Shacklebolt levelled his own challenging stare, Hermione's heart wrenching at the sheer balls of the man. Staring Greyback in the eyes was like facing death itself. Shacklebolt didn't blink. "You're no more than a pawn for Him, Greyback. You're not stupid, you know that."

Greyback's tongue snaked forward and licked a sharp tooth. "Better a pawn than a dog."

* * *

"You can't be letting this happen." Hermione's voice broke in her throat, following Anders into the tent where he grabbed a mass of wound rope.

Anders huffed a sigh that told Hermione he had been expecting her objection. _Damn right,_ she thought. "You know that I'm going to, why are you even bothering?" He was exasperated. He grabbed another bunch of rope, thinner, and stalked out of the tent.

She followed him, "you are despicable." Once she might have been disbelieving but she had seen too much for that now. She was angry but ultimately unsurprised. "How do you sleep at night?"

"You know very well how I sleep at night, Witch." He met three other werewolves at a wide tree, one of them hammering metal stakes into the ground and the other two holding the shaking prisoners. Anders unwound the rope and started to wrap it around the shoulders and upper arms of the female rebel. "You can wait for me at the tent or you can start helping whoever's on dinner tonight."

Hermione chanced a glance at the crying woman, half-expecting her to start begging Hermione as well. Joanne seemed to have learned her lesson. Hermione shook her head inwardly; she would not ignore the pleas of the desperate like Aanka: the least she could do was give the poor woman some hope. "Go to hell." She said to Anders. The eyebrows of the other werewolves shot into their hairlines, one of them curling their lip in disgust. Anders didn't do anything. He continued to wind the rope around Joanne until her wrists were bound together, and her arms were pinned to her chest. He looped the rope through the stake in the ground and cast a spell to seal them together. His response took so long that Hermione thought perhaps he hadn't heard her.

Then his hands were in her hair and he yanked her down to kneel at his feet. One hand held her in place by the hair and the other slapped her twice. Hard. On the cheek. Without a word he yanked her up again and dragged her off towards the tent he shared with her, Hermione tripping over her feet as she was pulled along.

As they approached the mouth of the tent Anders made a show of throwing her inside and stormed in after her. "You know that line we talked about, Witch? You're coming real fucking close." His brow furrowed at the top of his nose and he spat the words through his teeth. He was angry.

Hermione righted herself. "I—"

"NO!" He cut her off. "I'm done listening to your whining." He stalked the distance between them and grabbed her by the jaw, forcing her widening eyes to meet his fury. "You are going to shut the fuck up and you are going to listen."

She swallowed but ultimately stayed silent.

"I have been patient with you, I have put up with your bad attitude. And yet you continue to push your 'woe-is-me' rhetoric like anybody gives a crap. I don't want to punish you, Witch. In fact, I'd really like for us to get along, but I will not be disrespected by an insolent little know-it-all." He dropped his voice an octave and spoke dangerously then. "And I sure as hell won't be embarrassed like that in front of my men." His fingers flexed against her cheek. His anger was palpable, and Hermione was starting to guess she had taken a step too far.

She took a breath and then another step. "They're going to rape her," she whispered.

He rolled his eyes and threw her face away from him. "They're probably going to kill her." He said matter-of-factly. "Do you want to join her? You're digging your grave awfully deep." He threw his hands up in the air, "fuck Hermione, I could let them all have at you too, let them pass you around like a plaything. I don't. Every night I give you furs and a tent to sleep in. You could bunk with any of the other men, but you don't have to. You get me. And all I seem to get in return is backchat and disrespect. Pretty sorry excuse for a thank you."

Hermione laughed without an ounce of mirth. "A _thank you_? I'm supposed to thank you for not letting me be raped by lots of men. For what? So I can be raped by one man instead." She scoffed. "Thank you, my hero." She said, dripping sarcasm.

He growled and gave her a clear and resounding slap across the face before pulling her back to face him by the chin once again. "Would you just quit the sorry-for-yourself act, it's getting real fucking old. It's not earning you anything; no one here feels sorry for you." He laughed. "Why would we? We're the ones doing it to you, we're never going to wake up one day and turn over a new leaf, so stop pretending that's going to happen. This is our nature, Witch. This is our culture."

She scrunched her nose in anger. "You're never going to stop hurting people? I'm never going to stop being angry about it." She raised her voice to meet him. "I am not stupid for expecting better, for holding you to decent standards."

He scoffed at her, "yes, because that's worked out for you brilliantly so far, hasn't it? Tell me how your disobedience has helped me a 'better' man."

She stayed silent, her chin wobbling with a wet rage.

He simply nodded at her. "That's what I thought." A moment passed between them where neither one of them said anything. He sighed, brought his hand to his eyes, and rubbed his temple with his thumb and forefinger. "Granger, you are smart. Surely at this point you must have realised you're only making your life harder here."

The tears threatening her cheeks finally broke and wet her face, but her eyes softened, tired. "Please, Anders. Just let her go." Her voice was broken and flat, and they both knew that Joanne was not the 'her' Hermione was referring to. Her words were but a meagre attempt to maintain the Gryffindor fight inside.

Anders looked down and shook his head. He sighed, returned to his bed beyond the inner curtain and sat down on it. "You know that's not going to happen, Granger."

"Alright," Hermione sniffed and nodded to herself. "I'll do it myself then." She said quietly.

He rolled his eyes. "Come on, Witch. This petulance is beneath you."

"No," she looked him dead in the eyes. "I'm not going to let you beat the compassion out of me."

"Enough, Witch! I have had enough!" He stood in his anger and approached her. "I'm sick of offering you far more than you deserve and receiving only disobedience." He grabbed her by the back of her neck, his fingers long enough to cradle the back of her head. He steered her toward the bed and forced her face down into it. "You will respect me, or so help me god I will give up on you. Throw you to the perverts out there. Is that what you want?" He bent down to spit the words into her face on the bed. "Is it, Witch? Is that what you want?"

"Is this what you want? You want me to roll over like Aanka, be your bitch?"

He growled and held her there. He pulled her jeans down her legs with his free hand and slapped her bare arse. Hermione yelped and tried to wriggle out from underneath his grasp, but he held her firm and slapped it hard again, springing tears into Hermione's eyes. He growled again, spitting fury and yanked her back up by the hair to face him. "You'd be oh so fortunate to be my bitch. You don't deserve such a luxury." With his free hand, he unfastened his belt buckle and pushed her to her knees. "You are nothing more than a slave."

Anders held her head tight between his hands, wrapping her coils around his fingers, and shoved his semi-erect meat into her mouth. The taste made her gag immediately and he took the opportunity to push his cock further into her mouth. Her tears came reflexively as she choked around him.

Anders spent only a few moments fucking her face as she cried. He growled in frustration again before pulling his cock out once more, wiping it on her cheek. She noticed it was softer now than it was before. He shoved it back into his trousers before pulling his wand out of his sleeve and casting chains around her ankles, anchoring her to the foot of the bed.

He stalked in rage toward the piles of boxes in the outer room of the tent, where he kept his assortment of possessions. He leant his hands on the table there and panted his fury out like a bull.

 _Good,_ she thought to herself. _Can't even get it up. I hope he's embarrassed._

Minutes passed as neither of them moved. She remained kneeling by the bed, saliva and tears still smeared across her face. Her gaze was fixed at the furs, where she hadn't slept in what felt like days, but she didn't see anything but her hatred of everything that surrounded her. He maintained his position, hands flat out and leaning on the table several metres away from her.

Finally, her voice came to her evenly. "You want me to be someone I cannot be."

He sighed, suddenly seeming much too tired of fighting, suddenly making Hermione feel as if this was a fight she might have with her husband in some other life. "I want you to be clever, Granger. I am not Fenrir Greyback. I don't enjoy beating you into submission. I want you to see you have an opportunity to have it easier than you currently do. It's your choice if you take it or not." He didn't look at her as he spoke.

She laughed mirthlessly. "I should be grateful you're not a sadist."

"Yes, you should. And you should use that to your advantage. Let go of your old ideas of the world, Granger. They won't do what you want them to anymore. Let go. Survive."

He didn't wait to hear her response before he left for the camp outside.

Hermione was sick of being told to let go. She was fed up with criminals and sociopaths telling her that kindness and compassion were empty notions of grandeur. What did Aanka and Anders know? They've never bothered to hope for better, and their belief that letting go of her faith in the world would do her any benefit only served to aggravated her. _I don't want to live like that,_ she thought. _I can't just accept less, it's cowardly._ But the voice in her head was weak. It _was_ cowardly, but that did not comfort her because somewhere deep within her responded. _They're right._

* * *

Hermione had fallen asleep to the sounds of begging and pleading for mercy somewhere outside the tent. In her moments before slumber, she had hoped for a wand – not to escape – but to simply ward the tent from the sounds. She had woken up some time later, she guessed some hours, and Anders had not yet returned. She had wondered briefly where he was, what he was doing, before those thoughts filled her with hate. The hate did not last as long as she had hoped. Having given in to unfettered emotional fatigue, Hermione dug in her furs for the copy of _Shadows and Spirits_ and begun to pick up where she had left off.

Her reading speed had slowed, and she was horrified to note that even her comprehension was not as she had remembered it. It had been a long time since she had read for pleasure, and the skill she had practiced so much required maintenance she simply could not devote energy to anymore.

Anders returned as she turned the page onto her third chapter of the evening. She was very aware he was there and did her best to keep her eyes fixed to words on the page in front of her; he had to call her name before she decided to pay him any notice. "Oh, you're back." She feigned her ignorance. He pretended to believe her.

"You're probably hungry by now." He offered her a bowl of what looked to be green beans, sprouts, cabbage, potato and shredded ham all covered in gravy. Her mouth drowned itself in salivation and she took the bowl from him, spooning warm food into her mouth.

After a few bites, she slowed and eyed him warily. "So, you're not starving me then." Her mother would have balked at her eating with her mouth full.

He rolled his eyes. "Quite a flare for the dramatic, you."

Hermione got the impression she was being treated like his charge. He spoke to her – and fed her – as if he was her father. The thought creeped her out, then comforted her. _That_ only creeped her even more.

She watched him take off his outer coat and boots as she ate. The silence lay comfortably between them before he looked down at her. "Are you ready to apologise?"

"No." She swallowed her bite. "Are you?"

Anders gave her a glare in answer, making it obvious what he thought of that proposal.

She changed the subject. "Would you mind casting a ward on the tent?" He raised his eyebrows in confusion. "The… the men. The prisoners. I just want to be able to sleep. Please." She added as an afterthought.

His features softened and he acquiesced, casting a sound ward around the perimeter of the tent.

She nodded her thanks.

They did not interact for some time after that. He grabbed a book from the small wooden crate he kept beside his bed and lay on the bed to read. She finished her meal and settled down with her own book at the foot of the bed. They remained like that, reading in each other's company for almost an hour before Hermione put her book down to remove her boots and jeans. The cheek of her arse stung still from his brutality earlier and she soothed it before turning her eyes to watch Anders read.

He sat on his bed in his t shirt and cuffed cargo trousers, one leg tucked under him and the book resting on his other knee. His lips pursed slightly in concentration and his lashes cast shadows on his cheeks as he looked downward to the page.

"Nothing better to stare at?" When he looked up from his book finally, he saw her in her fleece and a pair of underwear that sat too baggily on her frame, despite his efforts to keep her fed.

She didn't respond to his question. "I still think you're wrong." He blinked. "About the world and what I should expect of it."

He sighed, softly this time, and beckoned her over with the jerk of his head. She reluctantly joined him on the bed, mostly for his physical warmth. "You don't have to take my advice, Granger. But I do give it from experience."

"Well then I feel sorry for you."

He blinked again, floored by that statement. He looked at her with an expression she could not describe. At his silence, and the happy feeling in her full stomach, she turned away from him and lay her head down against the pillow.

The room was still but for their breathing. And then he all but whispered, "thank you."


End file.
